Tag: Paul Wolfe

Penske’s Wolfe ‘trying to make the most’ of what’s become a legendary career

Paul Wolfe has put together a NASCAR Hall of Fame legacy in a short amount of time but the Team Penske team leader for Joey Logano continues to focus forward. “It’s great. I’m excited about it,” Wolfe said after winning his third Cup Series …

Paul Wolfe has put together a NASCAR Hall of Fame legacy in a short amount of time but the Team Penske team leader for Joey Logano continues to focus forward.

“It’s great. I’m excited about it,” Wolfe said after winning his third Cup Series championship. “But I’ve said this many times — I just go to work every day and try to do the best I can for (Roger Penske) and the company and the opportunity they gave me when I came on board some 15 years ago or so now. I’m just trying to make the most of it.

“You just have to go to work every day and prove yourself like it’s your first day on the job. That’s kind of how I’ve approached it.”

Wolfe and Logano have won two championships together (2022, 2024). The first title for both came while paired with someone else. In Wolfe’s case, it was Brad Keselowski in 2012, which was his second season as a Cup Series crew chief. And that championship was also the first in the NASCAR Cup Series for Penske.

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In nine seasons together, Wolfe and Keselowski won 29 races and finished in the top five in the championship five times. They never had a winless season.

The success has continued with Wolfe guiding Logano’s No. 22 team. It’s been five years that have produced two championships, three Championship 4 appearances, and 13 wins.

“I’ve been fortunate to work with two really talented drivers since I’ve been at Penske, and I’m surrounded by a lot of great people,” Wolfe said. “There are guys on the team today that started with me back with the (Xfinity Series) car there when I first started in 2010 with Brad.

“And then obviously our transition to Cup in 2011. There are guys that started with me then. It’s pretty special that we’ve been able to keep a great group of guys together that, I guess, kind of understand how I like to approach things. And they’ve done a really nice job. It makes my job easier.”

Wolfe has never had a winless season as a Cup Series crew chief. On average, Wolfe and his drivers win three races a year.

In October, when Wolfe and Logano won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it was Wolfe’s 41st career win, which is the most in the series by an active crew chief. He ended the year sitting on 42 career wins as the team won the race and the championship at Phoenix Raceway.

“I’ve never tried to micromanage,” Wolfe said. “I try to hire guys that can think for themselves and do their job, and we all know what our position is amongst the team and do it to a high standard that is set from the boss, the expectations. And I’m just glad we can continue to bring him (Penske) things that hasn’t been done in the past with three-in-a-row championships is pretty cool.”

Wolfe felt fuel gamble was ‘worth the risk’ in Nashville

Paul Wolfe came close to calling Joey Logano down pit road for fuel before the final overtime attempt at Nashville Superspeedway but figured the team had gone that far, and it was worth the gamble to stick it out. Logano made it work and drove a …

Paul Wolfe came close to calling Joey Logano down pit road for fuel before the final overtime attempt at Nashville Superspeedway but figured the team had gone that far, and it was worth the gamble to stick it out.

Logano made it work and drove a stumbling fuel tank across the finish line for the No. 22 team’s first win. A win that cliches the Team Penske group a spot in the postseason instead of bouncing around the bubble spot.

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Wolfe and Logano went 110 laps on their final tank of fuel. A rash of cautions in the final stage, including five overtime attempts, helped make the risk pay off.

“It was (a hard decision to stay on track), and I was so close to calling him down that last one because, at that point, you’re only so accurate,” Wolfe said. “My engineers are figuring the fuel mileage manually, and then we have simulations tools and things predicting how many laps we can run, which is based … you can tell when the engine’s running how much Joey’s saving. And they weren’t totally lining up. But I went with the one that told us we could run the longest. But that last one, that one said we were running out, so at that point, it was very tough.

“I thought it was worth the risk. It’s hard … I know we’re on the points cuff, but you have to figure over the next few weeks someone else is going to win a race, and then it’s all about winning, I feel like. So, I think that made the decision a little easier knowing someone else behind us in points is pretty likely to win a race with all the different style tracks coming up as we lead into the playoffs.”

The fuel window for Nashville Superspeedway is approximately 80 laps. But with Logano running in the middle of the field as opposed to in clean air as the leader, plus the caution periods, the variables fell his way.

Logano was running 15th with 15 laps to go (lap 285) in the race’s scheduled distance. His final pit stop was on lap 221, when the team also elected to take two tires. When the caution came out with two laps to go, setting up the first overtime, Logano restarted seventh, having moved up in the running order because of those who pitted in front of him and through the choose rule.

For the second and third overtime attempts, Logano restarted fifth. He moved into third position at the time of the caution that set up the fourth overtime restart, and he was the leader for that attempt because Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. had to pit for fuel in front of him.

Logano held serve on the fourth and fifth overtime restarts. But as he crossed the finish line, he told his team he was out of fuel. And yet, somehow, Logano returned to do a burnout before going to victory lane.

“We felt good it was full when we made that last stop, and at that point, I think we said we were 10 laps to the good,” Wolfe said. “If it ran regular distance, we felt we could run to (lap) 310. The first overtime, my guys were like, ‘We’re all right. We can maybe do one more.’ Then another one came, and it was like, we’re pushing it, but I think we can do it.

“Then after the second one, yeah, it was nerve-wracking for sure. By the last one, I was kind of numb to it at that point. I’m like, ‘It is what it is.’ I said, ‘If you feel it stumble, bring it to us.’ It was a big roller coaster of emotions there going through all those late-race overtime cautions.”