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.”
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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.
Cook Out 400 NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying Results
- Denny Hamlin: 118.162 mph, 22.850 seconds
- Martin Truex Jr.: 117.822 mph, 22.916 seconds
- Josh Berry: 117.601 mph, 22.959 seconds
- Chase Elliott: 118.105 mph, 22.861 seconds
- Christopher Bell: 117.570 mph, 22.965 seconds
- Austin Dillon: 117.770 mph, 22.926 seconds
- Chris Buescher: 117.463 mph, 22.986 seconds
- Bubba Wallace: 117.591 mph, 22.961 seconds
- Joey Logano: 117.096 mph, 23.058 seconds
- Tyler Reddick: 117.488 mph, 22.981 seconds
- Ryan Blaney: 119.095 mph, 22.671 seconds
- Kyle Busch: 118.069 mph, 22.868 seconds
- William Byron: 119.090 mph, 22.672 seconds
- Ty Gibbs: 117.925 mph, 22.896 seconds
- Kyle Larson: 119.016 mph, 22.686 seconds
- Noah Gragson: 117.837 mph, 22.913 seconds
- Alex Bowman: 118.796 mph, 22.728 seconds
- Austin Cindric: 117.801 mph, 22.920 seconds
- Carson Hocevar: 118.723 mph, 22.742 seconds
- Zane Smith: 117.447 mph, 22.989 seconds
- Daniel Suarez: 118.718 mph, 22.743 seconds
- Ross Chastain: 116.929 mph, 23.091 seconds
- Todd Gilliland: 118.582 mph, 22.769 seconds
- Corey LaJoie: 116.893 mph, 23.098 seconds
- Chase Briscoe: 118.385 mph, 22.807 seconds
- Ryan Preece: 116.600 mph, 23.156 seconds
- Erik Jones: 118.214 mph, 22.840 seconds
- Michael McDowell: 115.731 mph, 23.330 seconds
- Brad Keselowski: 117.976 mph, 22.886 seconds
- Ty Dillon: 115.716 mph, 23.333 seconds
- Harrison Burton: 117.596 mph, 22.960 seconds
- Daniel Hemric: 115.577 mph, 23.361 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: 117.524 mph, 22.974 seconds
- Riley Herbst: 115.281 mph, 23.421 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek: 117.402 mph, 22.998 seconds
- Justin Haley: 115.207 mph, 23.436 seconds
- Parker Retzlaff: 116.435 mph, 23.189 seconds