NASCAR confiscated a rear suspension component from Joey Logano’s Penske Ford during Sunday’s Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Early in the final stage, Logano began falling back through the field and smoke billowed out of his left-rear wheel well.
He headed to the garage for repairs to what was explained as a suspension issue before returning to finish 37th.
But while the car was off the track, NASCAR officials confiscated a rear suspension part to take a closer look.
Logano is now 13th in the standings with seven races remaining before the playoffs begin and his sole win so far this year – at Richmond – cannot be counted for the title shootout because it was ruled an ‘encumbered finish’ due to a rear suspension irregularity.
Asked if he knew what had been confiscated at New Hampshire, Logano said: “Something in the back, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It was broken anyway.”
With Austin Dillon, currently 20th in the championship, set to take the 16th playoff place via his Charlotte win, Logano is vulnerable to missing the title runoff as he is the lowest placed driver in the top 16 in the points without an eligible race victory.
“We’ve got to stick together as a team,” Logano said.
“We need to keep faith in each other and we need to make our cars faster. Plain and simple, we have to get faster.
“We’ve got a team that can win a lot of races, but we’ve got to get our race cars to where they can win a lot of races.”
Earlier in the New Hampshire weekend, Logano had denied his post-Richmond form decline was due to Penske having to make changes after that penalty.
He did not finish higher than 23rd in the following five rounds.
“It wasn’t something that is taking away from the rest of these races,” Logano insisted.
“After Richmond, we had three crashes in a row.
“There were some different modifications to our bodies that NASCAR started regulating that took some performance away from our cars and we have to try to make that up.
“We are trying to figure out how to make that speed up.
“It is nothing from Richmond that would affect what happened.
“It is easy to assume that though, I agree. If I was on the outside looking in, I would say the exact same thing, but it is not.
“I promise you that. It is not that simple.”