Though many drivers have noted an increased closing speed with the current superspeedway aerodynamic package in the NASCAR Cup Series, Logano said he didn’t feel it was too difficult to judge the runs coming his way, even on the final lap.
“It’s not that hard to judge a run. You see it all happening. If you’re got a good spotter and you’re a good drafter and see it in the mirror happening, you see it happen before it happens. You know it’s coming,” Logano explained. “It’s not like you’re looking and, ‘Oh my gosh, here it comes. Where did that come from?’ At least for me, there’s never a moment that surprises me in the draft, unless it’s someone tagging somebody the wrong way and starting a crash or something like that, but the runs themselves aren’t surprising. I think that’s just years of experience at this point.
“It’s having a good spotter on the roof that’s feeding you the information that you see it coming before it happens,” Logano continued. “That doesn’t mean you can defend everything and stop everything, but if you know it’s coming, at least you’re prepared for it.”
Logano said his main disappointment in regard to the finish Sunday night came down to the crew members at Team Penske that hoped one of the team’s drivers would bring home the Harley J. Earl Trophy.
“To me, the biggest heartbreak of this whole thing is that there are 400 people at Team Penske asking where their Daytona 500 bonus is and it’s up in a ball of flames in turn three,” said Logano. “That, to me, is probably the hardest part to deal with … because those families put just as much into it as I do and I learned that when we won the championship in 2018. We went to a lot of different places and met a lot of people and didn’t understand how much we affected people’s livelihoods. When I realized that, it kind of changed my thought process a lot on what I do behind the wheel.
“That part is probably what stings the most. We had a really good shot at having a Penske one-two, and instead we finished 12th and 13th.”
As for why Logano hasn’t spoken with Keselowski — who left an indelible image in the minds of many fans last weekend after throwing his helmet and gloves at his destroyed race car — the 2018 Cup Series champion said “it’s probably best to cool the jets” before that conversation takes place.
“The analogy I used on Sirius (XM NASCAR Radio) was (that being a teammate) is like a marriage. When you’re married to somebody, you have to figure it out,” Logano said. “You don’t just leave. You get married; it’s supposed to be forever, so when you have conflict or you have a difference of opinion, you have to talk about it. You can’t just roll it up under the rug. It’s just not going to work. It’s not healthy. People do that, but it’s just not healthy to do.
“That’s kind of the situation here, where I will be forced, and he will be forced to work with me. We’re still teammates. We will have to figure this out. We may not have to agree on everything, but we at least have to find a way to move forward,” Logano noted. “That is going to be the approach we need to have because going back to all the people who work at Team Penske, we owe it to them to figure this out, and we will fix it and it will be fine.
“There’s going to be six different opinions on how the last few laps went and depending on what seat you’re in you would pick differently, so it’s just a matter of talking it out.”
When will the conversation between Logano and Keselowski take place?
“There’s time before Sunday’s race to do that,” Logano said. “That’s kind of where I’m at with it.”