“It hurts. It stings,” Joey Logano laments as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ruined the perfect start to his Cup defense

If the final caution had been called a second earlier, Joey Logano would have scored his second Daytona 500 win.

“It hurts. It stings,” Joey Logano laments as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ruined the perfect start to his Cup defense

Joey Logano (Credits: @NASCAR/Twitter)

The defending Cup series champion Joey Logano was close to winning his second Daytona 500 on Sunday. But JTGR driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ended the No:22 crew’s dream day as the 35 years old broke his 199-race winless streak. The 75th anniversary season Cup opener also marked history as the Longest Daytona 500 of all time.

Logano and Stenhouse Jr. took the lead before the penultimate yellow flag after a crash involving race leaders Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon. On the final restart, the fight went into a three-wide race between the duo and JGR’s Christopher Bell. The No:47 chevy took the white flag and was awarded the win as the final caution was called for a crash involving Kyle Larson.

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During his post-race interview, Logano pointed out that finishing second is one of the worst feelings ever. He said, “Second is the worst, man.  You’re so close. Leading the white flag lap there, I was upfront. Kyle gave me a good push, and, yeah, you’re watching in the mirror, and you’re three-wide across there. I felt like the three-wide was going a hurt a lane; looked like Kyle was getting pushed ahead, and then Ricky started getting pushed ahead,”.

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“I knew if I went to the bottom, my car didn’t handle well enough. I already got pushed off the bottom once, and I thought, if I go down there, I’m probably going to get wrecked, and I don’t know if I can get down there in time to throw the block (on Stenhouse), and so I didn’t want to wreck my car either,” Joey Logano added.

“Oh man, it hurts. It stings. Sucks, There’s not really much you can say. Congrats to Ricky and his team. Unfortunately, we were close to winning the Daytona 500, and being this close just hurts,” Logano said in his media appearance.

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Joey Logano was a sitting duck in the final restart

Joey Logano
Joey Logano

Logano was the only Ford on the front line on the final restart, and it cost him as he didn’t get enough support on the final run, which could have yielded a win. He added that he is pleased with his Penske Racing crew’s efforts and said that the officials should have called the caution a bit earlier.

“I felt better about being in that spot than I did being on the front row. So, I felt that was as good as a spot I could be beside not having enough Mustangs around me. Unfortunately, all of them had issues, so I had no friends around me, and that kind of puts you as a sitting duck a little bit,” the No:22 driver said.

“We did a good job putting ourselves in position and doing what we could do today, and you hope the race would have played out there at the end. Maybe it would have been a little different, or the caution came out a second sooner. That would have been good too. But it is what it is,” he added.

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