NASCAR Cup 2025 season in review: Team Penske

A strong start to the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season and a great glimpse of success in the playoffs ultimately fell short for Team Penske and their partners.

Including satellite team Wood Brothers Racing, Penske opened the season strong with each driver getting a win in the first 14 races — Josh Berry at Las Vegas in March, Austin Cindric at Talladega in April, Joey Logano at Texas in May and Ryan Blaney at Nashville Superspeedway in June.

Blaney winning once in the first 14 races carried a huge asterisk. If not for woes out of their control at Phoenix, Las Vegas, Homestead-Miami and Darlington, it’s likely the 2023 Cup champion could’ve entered Nashville with four wins on the season.

Ultimately, Blaney continued that early-season strength with a great stretch of races — Indianapolis, Iowa, Watkins Glen and Richmond — before his second win of 2025 at Daytona in August.

Blaney had the honor of instilling a sense of dread to the competition and fans at New Hampshire with a dominant win on the tire compound the field would ultimately use in the Phoenix championship race Penske had won, finished second and won in the previous three years.

Somewhere between New Hampshire and Phoenix, however, the team fell short. Austin Cindric showed little speed, Joey Logano lagged the breakout speed and finesse that made him champ in 2024 and Ryan Blaney’s inconsistency put him in a last-ditch effort to win at Martinsville. 

Ultimately, Hendrick Motorsports conquered Penske at Martinsville, with William Byron beating Blaney, before taking the championship with Kyle Larson at Phoenix.

All of the fanfare around the maligned finish to the 2025 championship took away from Blaney earning a career-high fourth win of the season at Phoenix. 2025 also marked his third consecutive season with at least three wins in a season with 10 of his 17 career wins coming in that time.

As NASCAR eyes a format where race-to-race consistency matters more, either through a full-season format or something akin to the 2004-13 Chase format, the 2023 Cup champion has a chance at getting his second championship.

As long as he can get a handle on a consistently high number of DNFs.

Blaney ranks 29th for races finished over the last two Cup seasons with 57 races finished but 15 races with a DNF (eight in 2025, seven in 2024) — compared to eight for Larson and nine for Logano over the last two seasons.

In 2025 alone, Blaney fell victim to engine failures twice, three crashes he was a mere passenger in, a massive tire failure and two crashes while racing hard near the front.

Ultimately, Blaney may need to buy a rabbit’s foot to match the rabbit’s pace they have.

Like Blaney, Joey Logano and his Paul Wolfe-led No. 22 team are going to be just fine. Whatever the format is, Wolfe will lead the team to give Logano exactly what he needs to be successful — and they will learn from their 2025 defeat.

On the other hand, Austin Cindric and his Brian Wilson-led No. 2 team have some more work to do after such a strong start that fell flat in the end:

• First 17 races: One top-five finish (Talladega win), four top-10 finishes
• Final 19 races: One top-five finish (fifth at Richmond), no other top-10s
  • Just four other top-15 finishes
  • Second-round playoff elimination

While Cindric earned fewer points and a worse average finish, his average running position and stage points kept up with his two-time champion teammate:

• Average running position in 2025
  • Austin Cindric: 14.68
  • Joey Logano: 12.97
• Stage points in 2025
  • Austin Cindric: 141
  • Joey Logano: 168

Penske’s junior Cup driver also led almost 100 more laps than 2024 and led at a variety of tracks. He led laps at Texas, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Iowa, Daytona, Indianapolis and Talladega, the 2.66-mile track where he won to make the playoffs again and for the third time in the last four years.

Ultimately, Penske started the season strong but seemed to lose some speed during the summer when Joe Gibbs Racing found what they needed to win half of the playoff races and fill half of the spots in the Championship 4 and Hendrick Motorsports’ consistent speed outlasted them all.

With Chevrolet teams likely getting a new body that may not start the strongest but will get better throughout 2026, Penske will need to master the midseason to build speed they can use down the stretch against other heavyweight teams.

People rejoiced when Penske missed the Championship 4 — but it’s fair to say they likely rejoiced knowing the team will work hard to ensure 2026 is different.