The first race of the Stanley Cup playoffs shook up the standings in a way few could have expected.
Kyle Larson entered the playoffs as the leader in the standings, but fell to 10th in the standings after his crash in Atlanta.
Joey Logano had finished 19th or worse in seven of the last 11 races of the regular season…and won in Atlanta to advance to the second round.
Here are the key takeaways from the opening race of the Cup playoffs:
Drafting tracks are the domain of Team Penske
Not only did Joey Logano win, but teammate Ryan Blaney, who finished third, scored the most points (53) and teammate Austin Cindric, who finished 10th, scored the fourth-most points (46) on Sunday.
Blaney leads the standings heading into Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen (3 p.m. ET on USA Network). Blaney has a 45-point lead over Brad Keselowski, the first driver to leave a transfer spot. Cindric entered the playoffs with a two-point lead at the starting line and now has a 27-point lead over Keselowski.
While many viewed Atlanta as a wildcard race, Team Penske saw it as an opportunity.
“I expected a performance like today,” Cindric said after his 10th-place finish. “I expected a fifth-place qualifying finish like we did (Saturday). I think the expectations are high within the industry or our organization and honestly within myself, so I felt like a win was definitely possible (Sunday).”
Team Penske led 134 of 266 laps at Atlanta, including a race-record 92 laps by Cindric.
Team Penske has led the most laps in all five draft-style races this season: both Daytona races, both Atlanta races and the spring race at Talladega. Team Penske also led the most laps in last year’s Talladega playoff race.
Team Penske drivers have also won seven of the ten draft-style races this season.
At the end of the game on Sunday, it was Blaney who pushed Logano into the lead during the restart of overtime.
“Blaney has been a fantastic teammate,” Logano said. “We’ve been working together for years now. It’s good, for so many years we’ve talked about a lot of scenarios. We’ve been through a lot of different scenarios at the end of these races. We’ve done some really well, like today, sometimes we’ve made mistakes, both of us.”
“The good thing is we were able to talk about it all the time and get better. That’s exactly what you want from a teammate. It’s a give and take. Sometimes you’re the one on the winning path, sometimes you’re not. Luckily, today we were in the right place.”
A step forward for Alex Bowman but there is still work to be done
Alex Bowman’s week started with him pushing back against rumors that he would be replaced if he didn’t advance to the first round of the playoffs.
Bowman finished fifth on Sunday. He moved from the last transfer spot in Atlanta to sixth in the standings. He is 27 points ahead of the first driver without a transfer spot.
It’s his third top-five finish in five draft-style races this season, including a second-place finish in the Daytona 500.
But the biggest challenge comes this weekend at Watkins Glen. Although Hendrick Motorsports has won the last five races at the historic road course, Bowman has never finished better than 14th in seven Cup starts there.
“Watkins Glen, yeah, we were pretty terrible,” Bowman said.
He has focused on this track this season.
“I spent a month in the simulator trying to get better,” said Bowman, who leads the series in road course points this season. “I feel like I’m good on other road courses, (but) the Glen is just not a place that really suits me. I’m trying to figure that out and get better.”
Should Joe Gibbs Racing be worried?
Three of its four drivers are either below the cutoff line or just above it after Atlanta.
Last weekend was a horrible weekend for most of the organization.
Wiring issues cost Denny Hamlin power in qualifying and he was the slowest car. Teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs also started in the rear after spark plug wires were replaced before Sunday’s race after experiencing similar issues to Hamlin.
The race wasn’t much better. Martin Truex Jr. was penalized for speeding in pit lane and his car was damaged in a crash before finishing 35th. Hamlin ran at the back for much of the race and was involved in the last-lap crash and finished 24th. Ty Gibbs led at the end but said he missed a block and it dropped him back, finishing 17th.
The result is that Truex is 19 points off the line. Gibbs holds the final transfer spot with two races remaining in the first round. Hamlin is two points behind the first driver to miss out on the playoffs.
One thing is for sure: Last year, Joe Gibbs Racing had every car in the top six at Watkins Glen. Hamlin was second, Christopher Bell third, Gibbs fifth and Truex sixth a year ago.
Back on top of the stand
Adam Stevens returned to the track for the first time since July at Indianapolis. Stevens tore the patellar tendon in both knees He dove into a pool with family members during the Olympic break. He had to have surgery on both knees.
Stevens said he will be back on the track for the remainder of the season.
Bell finished fourth in Atlanta. He is second in the standings, 40 points ahead of the first driver not to make the playoffs.
“The bottom line is there’s 16 of us (in the playoffs) and 12 of us qualify,” Stevens said of the next round. “That’s a lot. So, you don’t have to hit a home run. To come out here and have a super solid day and be competitive after tightening things up is encouraging and it’s a little bit of a relief. But the next two races are also a little bit of a wild card. So what happened to some guys (Sunday) could easily happen to us next week.”
