By Vignesh Kanna

Copyright sportskeeda

Joey Logano is grateful that Bubba Wallace’s late-race battle with Denny Hamlin kept him above the playoff cutline. If Wallace had won at Kansas Speedway, Logano would’ve been in a must-win situation at the Charlotte Roval.Logano had a torrid start to the Hollywood Casino 400. After a poor qualifying at 35th, the No.22 driver was sent to the rear after making unapproved adjustments. The punishment was just the beginning of his troubles, as he later faced yet another tail-end penalty for pitting when the pit road was closed.Furthermore, he was also penalised for speeding on the pit road. Despite his misfortunes, Logano scored valuable stage points and kept himself in contention before getting collected by a multi-car wreck in Stage 3.While Logano managed to recover, his result suffered. He had a mid-pack finish at 21st, but Hamlin’s battle for the lead with Wallace ensured that Logano kept his playoff hopes alive.”You know the back half of that race couldn’t have gone much worse after the wreck but we’re also sitting in a lot of different spot if Bubble won that race. So, thanks Denny,” Logano said in an interview with NASCAR’s Inside the Race (via X/Steve Letarte)Joey Logano currently stands eighth on the playoff standings with 13 points above the cutline. He needs to score more than 50 points at Roval to advance to the final eight on points. Meanwhile, Hamlin needs just 22 points to qualify without a win.Joey Logano outlines his ‘hard weekend’ at KansasIn a post-race interview with NBC Sports, Joey Logano broke down his misfortunes at Kansas Speedway. The Team Penske driver explained how his late-race wreck made his No.22 Ford stiff.”It was a hard weekend. I thought we were recovering pretty well scoring stage points in both stages after starting in the back. I’m like, ‘All right, we’re OK here. We can kind of roll through here and we’ll be all right,’ and I just got caught up in that wreck on the restart and tore something up. I don’t know, but it wouldn’t turn after that,” he said.”We tried to throw a ‘Hail Mary’ with two tires, but there were too many restarts, and you can’t hold them off. I kept getting used up, so it sucks. We’re plus-13. It is what it is. We’ve got to go race, but it’s going to be close,” he added.The Stage 3 wreck began when the field got stacked up during a restart. Noah Gragson bounced off Joey Logano and turned into Austin Cindric, who made then contact with Logano’s rear as a result. The No.22 driver lost control of his car and drifted through the track without further damage.