NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano, Penske need to 'clean up mistakes'

Logano ran up front at Richmond last weekend, where a slow pitstop forced him to fight back towards the front.

He managed to catch race winner Martin Truex Jr but did not have enough laps to complete the pass.

The week before at Bristol, Logano won stage two but he pitted on a late caution which proved to be the wrong strategy.

At Texas, a penalty for a loose wheel on pitroad and a penalty for too many people working on his car after a bonnet pin broke set him back, having won stage one.

"We had a car that was capable of winning for the third week straight and we didn't win," said Logano.

"That part is frustrating. We need to clean up some mistakes on our end.

"We lost the lead there on a pit stop [in the Richmond race] and we got to get faster there.

"That is when we lost control of the race at that point and fell back to third and had a decent green-flag cycle that got us up and then we reeled in [Truex] and [Clint Bowyer] from pretty far back."

Logano was confident of catching the leaders and made an attempt to save his tyres to attack late, but he said he "needed a few more laps" to take the lead from Truex.

"I was watching them race and thought that if I was just patient and saved my tyres, I saw them coming off the corner sideways every time," said Logano.

"They were a little faster than me but I knew they were going to kill their stuff and they did.

"I got there, I was just a couple laps late getting there. I was able to get to (Truex) but it just wasn't enough.

"Just couldn't get there. Ran out of time."

Penske's Logano is now second in the championship standings behind Kyle Busch.

Logano has one win - at Las Vegas - whereas Busch has already taken three victories for Joe Gibbs Racing.