Yahoo Autos Roger Penske ranks 2024 season among team’s best-ever
Roger Penske ranks 2024 as one of the greatest in his history as a team owner after Joey Logano added a NASCAR Cup Series championship to a list of achievements going back to January that also includes victories in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona and the Indianapolis 500, and championships in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Series and FIA World Endurance Championship.
Logano gave Team Penske its third consecutive NASCAR title and its first-ever NASCAR championship one-two after beating teammate Ryan Blaney in Sunday’s season-finale at Phoenix.
The Phoenix result means Penske swept every championship it competes in this year with the exception of IndyCar, where Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou went back-to-back while Penske’s highest-placed driver was Scott McLaughlin in third.
“I guess you’d have to say it’s probably, if not the best, one of the best [years in the team’s history],” Penske said.
“Obviously, not to win the IndyCar championship, which of course is where we started and build our first racing team, was disappointing. But it’s one of those things that… Ganassi, you have to give him credit. He continues to put up great numbers with his guys. I told him, ‘Come on back to NASCAR, it’s gotten easier!’” (ED: Chip Ganassi Racing competed in NASCAR between 2009 and 2021).
Throughout the Phoenix weekend, Logano and Blaney both made reference to a Penske team culture where competing for championships is an expectation, not just an aspiration.
“Well, as you know, racing is a common thread through our company,” Penske agreed. “It’s our brand, and of course we want to win.
“What I try to do is provide them with what they need to be champions. We’re not always up like this. Sure, we want to win more. We want to win properly. I think when you race in this league with the teams we have here, and you see the execution — you’ve got to give (Penske’s President of NASCAR Operations) Mike Nelson and Travis Geisler (Penske’s NASCAR competition director) and (Logano’s crew chief) Paul Wolfe, (Blaney’s crew chief) Jonathan Hassler, these guys are just outstanding. And we grew them. We didn’t put them in from the top in the final, they came up through the bottom, every one of them. They have that domain knowledge, which makes it so important, and they work as one team.
“What I need to do is continue to push them, because we’re not interested in sitting here and not having the success, and I think that’s been a great thing for us, not only here in NASCAR racing but in all the other series, because it rubs off. We talk about the 24 Hours of Daytona; that rubbed off on these guys. They’re always asking me: How are we doing?
“I think when you think about it, the number of people that we have that touch every race in our company… we have 74,000 people that tomorrow are going to be just climbing the walls with happiness because of the success.
“That’s what I’m in it for. It’s not another race. It is, but it isn’t. It’s about being able to show our people and our partners what kind of company we are. This certainly helps.”
