NASCAR: Toyota Gives Update On Engine Nightmare Affecting Joe Gibbs Racing

A series of engine failures have plagued Toyota’s performance in recent NASCAR Cup Series races. The issues affected prominent drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing, with four engine failures impacting Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Ty Gibbs.

Tyler Gibbs, the General Manager of TRD and its future president, along with outgoing president David Wilson, has been intensely scrutinizing the failures. According to Tyler Gibbs, the investigations yielded clear causes for the breakdowns. Speaking to the media, as quoted by Autoweek, Gibbs explained:

“We know what caused them so from that perspective we are comfortable, as comfortable as you can be with some of the components involved with solving those problems.

“The problems were similar, but they were caused by different things. There were a couple of different issues associated with that. Denny’s (Hamlin) was the only one that was very, very different.”

Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 The Beast Unleashed Toyota, Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 Sport Clips Haircuts Toyota, Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, and Kyle Larson, driver…

Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Further detailing, he added:

“It was a couple of mechanical things, a couple of other factors involved, but not an over-rev or anything like that.”

From the driver’s perspective, Christopher Bell distanced himself from the technical aspects, commenting:

“That’s not my department,” Bell said. “You know, it obviously sucks to have issues like that, but it sucks for them. It probably sucks for them (Toyota) worse than it sucks for me. I trust them wholeheartedly … but sometimes mechanical failures are just mechanical failures.”

While specifics on the technical failures remain undisclosed by Tyler Gibbs, the TRD team’s response indicates a resolution imminently.