Joey Logano opened the playoffs with a win on Sunday.
Logano is in the second round of the playoffs after he drove past Daniel Suarez on a green-white-checker restart at Atlanta. Logano got a push from Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney to get past Suarez and easily held on for the win as a crash happened back in the field in the final two corners.
The two-time Cup Series champion is one of the best drivers in the Cup Series at tracks like Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta. It’s his second win at Atlanta since the track was reconfigured in 2022 to race more like Daytona and Talladega with cars artificially bunched together.
Logano’s win comes as many playoff drivers had awful days. That group included Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin. Larson crashed out of the race in the first stage while running third and Briscoe piled into him.
Truex got caught up in a wreck with Blaney and Chris Buescher. Blaney’s car was damaged and his team wrapped it in tape, but it somehow was still competitive.
Hamlin, meanwhile, was in the back of the pack all day after he started last because of an issue in qualifying. Hamlin complained of a loose car throughout the race and never made his way through the field before he was caught up in the last-lap crash.
