Why NASCAR’s top manufacturers jockeying for the top spot is good for the sport
The number 13 has particular significance to Toyota Racing Development president David Wilson: It’s the number of NASCAR wins he’d like to see Toyota achieve during the 2021 Cup season, and the math is simple.
“It’s 36 divided by three, plus one,” Wilson explained.
There are 36 races on the Cup schedule and Toyota is one of three manufacturers in the series. Toyota doesn’t necessarily need to win all of the races, as Wilson’s thinking goes, just one more than the competition.
“What we’re seeing this season with Chevrolets and Fords and Toyotas all doing battle, I think that’s good,” Wilson said. “It’s good for the fans.”
He said his confidence has been bolstered by the early performances of the Joe Gibbs Racing teams. Denny Hamlin leads the series with 434 points prior to this weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway. The driver of the No. 11 car has 81 points on teammate Martin Truex Jr., who’s second in the points standings.
The next biggest points gap between two consecutively ranked drivers is Chase Briscoe and Corey LaJoie, but they sit only 53 points apart at 28th and 29th, illustrating Hamlin’s early dominance. The No. 11 team has finished all except one race in the top-five, yet eight other drivers have won at least once, while Hamlin is still seeking his first victory.
Consistency over winning
“It’s frustrating for sure,” Hamlin said last week after winning both stages at Richmond then falling short to Alex Bowman. Bowman surged ahead after the final restart and Hamlin fell to second place for his sixth consecutive top-five.
But Hamlin said after the race that he wouldn’t trade his season with Bowman, who has two top-five finishes, one of which is a win.
“I don’t care that he’s got a win,” Hamlin said. “We’re smashing everyone. I’d still rather be where I’m at.”
Hamlin, Wilson and Bowman would likely agree that it’s early in the season and there’s still progress to be made for each team. But nine races deep, the series is no longer in a wait-and-see phase. While it’s easy to point to Hamlin as a consistent leader, equally as notable is the continued parity across top teams. All three manufactures — Toyota, Chevrolet and Ford — have three wins. At this point last season, Ford had more than half those wins.
Parity emerges
Three teams — JGR, Team Penske and Hendrick Motorsports — have also emerged as the best early performing organizations, but it gets grainy within each organization which car is riding on top. Three drivers from each team sit in the top-10 in points.
“I think (Penske) as a group, we’re getting close to where we need to be,” Ryan Blaney said. “There are a couple teams that are really fast. Hendrick, Gibbs are really fast, so we have to keep working hard to stay with those guys.”
Blaney’s No. 12 team won at Atlanta last month and is ranked in the top-five in points (fifth) behind teammate Logano in third and Hendrick driver William Byron in fourth.
When asked about the strength of the competition this year, Blaney pointed to the No. 5 team of Kyle Larson, who won at Las Vegas and has four top-five finishes. He also said Bowman’s win at Richmond demonstrated Hendrick Motorsports’ strength and that he expected the No. 9 team of Chase Elliott to come alive soon for the organization.
“I think HMS in general has been great,” Bowman said. “I feel like about every week they’ve had a car that’s capable of winning.”
Biding their time?
Elliott has three top-fives, but it’s been an otherwise quiet start to the season for the defending series champion, who has finished out of the top-10 in five of the first nine races this year. Most of Elliott’s wins last year (four of five) came in the latter half of the season, and three were within the final five races of the year.
Stewart-Haas Racing has oddly and collectively struggled this season, but driver Kevin Harvick has prevented his name from being discounted. Harvick is still eighth in points despite mid-race struggles. Eight of his nine wins last season were after the first nine races of the year.
Wilson isn’t concerned with the early performance of another series veteran and former Cup champion who’s had a quiet start to the season. JGR driver Kyle Busch is ranked 11th in points after a 2020 run that raised some eyebrows after his early playoff exit.
“We’re talking about Kyle Busch in kind of this cautious, ‘Is Kyle OK?’” Wilson said. “He’s still running up in the top-10. He’s gonna be fine.”
The same can likely be said for Penske driver Brad Keselowski, who’s ranked eighth in points, but is still seeking a win this year. Gibbs driver Christopher Bell rounds out the top-10 in points. He won at the Daytona road course, the second race of the season, another first-time Cup winner on the heels of Michael McDowell’s Daytona 500 upset.
Who’s the best?
But at almost 10 races in, who’s the team to beat?
“It’s hard to say,” Blaney said. “I think those two teams (Gibbs and Hendrick) have been really strong and we’ve been right there with ‘em.
“But I don’t think you can have a tippy top-dog team right now,” Blaney said. “I think it’s between the three of us and it’s just a matter of who hits it right on any given weekend.”
This weekend could add to that competitive drama given the unknowns of ‘Dega racing, or it could cement Hamlin’s place as this year’s early front-runner. He’s favored by oddsmakers to win this weekend. Regardless, while the parity highlighted earlier this year isn’t just a footnote, the typical top teams have risen to the top. But there’s still room for surprises, and the competition has been close, which keeps fans watching. That’s why Wilson said he wants 13 wins.
“The level of competition between Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota teams is closer to what it was a couple of years ago,” Wilson said. “When it was more of the Wild Wild West.
“Unselfishly, we know that’s good for the sport.”
