Joey Logano breaks down the final 20 laps at Phoenix Raceway and the championship battle with teammate Ryan Blaney.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Zach Sterniello, NASCAR.com.
00:01Joey, congratulations.
00:03What was that final 20-lap run like once Blaney got to second?
00:08Coleman told you you had about a tenth of a lap to give.
00:13Were you conserving any, and did that
00:16help negate any of that pressure?
00:18What did you feel mentally going through that final 20-lap run?
00:22Yeah, I mean, I think you look at the restart,
00:24and it was 70 to go.
00:26I believe it was somewhere around there.
00:29Took off, got the lead, and was like, oh, OK,
00:31we're in good shape.
00:32And we were better than the 24, so we were pulling away.
00:35Blaney got stuck in fourth.
00:37I'm like, OK.
00:38I just had to manage.
00:39This could be a really long run.
00:43And then, so I kind of started to manage my car
00:46once I got a couple seconds out.
00:47I'm like, all right, I'm in a good spot here.
00:49I just got to manage it.
00:50And then Blaney got clear, and I was like,
00:52I better start going, start hearing how fast he was.
00:54And to be able to pass cars these days,
00:57you've got to be faster, like a lot faster,
00:59to pull the moves off.
01:01So I knew once he cleared the Hendrick cars,
01:05and they weren't going to make it easy for him either,
01:08that he was going to be lights out fast.
01:11So I started going.
01:12I got to go.
01:13And he started catching me at a pretty rapid rate
01:19until you point to his last 20 laps.
01:20And really, with 13, 14 to go, he was there.
01:24And it was one mistake away.
01:26And my car couldn't quite turn as good as his.
01:31So it's a really big challenge to be able to, one,
01:35put dirty air on his line.
01:37But my fastest line wasn't where he was.
01:41He was able to make the bottom work really, really well
01:43on both ends, but below the yellow line in one and two,
01:46and even the bottom of three and four.
01:47But that wasn't my fastest lane.
01:49So I was like, I got to go fast, but I got
01:51to put the dirty on him.
01:52And Coleman did a fantastic job at whipping the horse as much
01:57as he could to get me going, but also giving me the information
02:01that I needed to be able to hold him off.
02:03So yeah, it's very intense.
02:05It went from, all right, we're looking good to, oh, here he
02:09comes.
02:09So Ryan is, I mean, this is no secret to anyone in here.
02:14Ryan is a tremendous race car driver.
02:16He is so fast.
02:19He pushes me a lot, more so than any other GMAT
02:23I've ever had.
02:24He pushes hard.
02:25So to be able to race him to the end, it was fun.
02:30But honestly, I knew that that was
02:32going to be our toughest competition
02:34going into the weekend.
02:35I said that to our guys.
02:37I said, Blaney's going to have the speed.
02:39We got to beat him on the details.
02:41That's where we have the advantage over them.
02:45But the speed knob, he's got turned up pretty high.
02:47So everything worked out well.
02:50And like I said, the details at the end of the restart
02:53and getting out there and managing,
02:55that was really the difference.