Joey Logano on finishing runner-up at Richmond: ‘It feels good and it hurts’

Besides Martin Truex Jr., the one driver feeling the worst about their top-5 finish from Richmond has to be Joey Logano. This NASCAR season has not been great for Logano and a win would have gone a long way for this No. 22 team.

Joey Logano was catching Martin Truex Jr. in traffic late in this race. He was in the second position as the leaders managed their way through lapped cars. It didn’t look like Logano would be able to get Truex before the finish, then a caution came out.

Bubba Wallace got into Kyle Larson with two laps to go and triggered a caution after Larson spun out across the track. Funny enough, Larson would restart P4 after saving his track position and coming out of the pits quickly. Wallace’s team made a mistake on pit road and lost his top-10 spot.

This opened the door for Denny Hamlin. Hamlin restarted P1 and would go on to win the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond. Meanwhile, Joey Logano came in P2. He was unable to advance his position on that restart.

“Yeah you get two, three car lengths back and you stall out. Just is what it is,” Logano said on pit road, via Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut. “I started pressuring the 19 at the end of that long run and he got racing hard with Ross Chastain trying to stay on the lead lap and I was like, this is my opportunity I got Denny to burn his stuff up trying to pass me and I said, ‘Okay this is my chance,’ and I got close to him and burned my stuff up about three to go so I wasn’t going to get him.”

When asked if he could have done anything different on the final restart, he was quick to answer.

“There’s a few things we all could have done better, so yes.”

In the end, this is a bittersweet finish for this team. Joey Logano had a shot to win, but it just didn’t happen.

“It feels good. It feels good and it hurts at the same time because we’re so close to winning the race,” Logano continued. “Said earlier, it’s the race track that we expect to run well at, it’s our best race track.”

Ultimately, Joey Logano was destined for runner-up. Even if the race ended in regulation, Logano was not going to be able to take the lead from Truex Jr. Still, the first top-5 of the season could go a long way to getting Logano back to his winning ways.

Next week at Martinsville is going to be another short track affair. Could Logano follow up this runner up finish and take victory at The Paperclip?