- In the season’s first half of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, Chevrolet owns eight victories, Toyota four and Ford one.
- After the first 13 races last year, Ford possessed three, Chevrolet seven and Toyota three.
- “It’s tough right now and it’s probably going to be tough for the foreseeable future until we can make some adjustments,” says Ford driver Joey Logano.
After the Next Gen car’s inaugural season in 2022, NASCAR allowed each Cup Series manufacturer to adjust its entry’s front end and cooling packages for 2023, a move that appears to have helped Chevrolet and Toyota but been extremely disappointing for Ford.
“We didn’t maximize as well as we needed to,” says Joey Logano, who possesses Ford’s only victory though the first 13 points races this season. “We’re constantly looking for improvements and how we can make our cars better just like everybody else’s, but we’re starting a little bit behind. It doesn’t mean we can’t win races. It just means we have to be perfect. We’re lacking downforce.”
In the season’s first half of the regular season, Chevrolet owns eight victories, Toyota four and Ford one. After the first 13 races last year, Ford possessed three, Chevrolet seven and Toyota three.
“It’s been a tough year,” said Mark Rushbrook, Ford Performance Global Director. “We also had a tough year, I think, last year in the middle of the season. We weren’t winning the number of races that we wanted to. We feel like we’re in a similar situation this year with only one win … but we’ve had some really strong performances that weren’t converted.”
So, could Ford’s plan for the 2024 NASCAR Cup season include a new car? When Rushbrook was asked that question, he simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Where we see opportunity for improvement is on the intermediate tracks,” Rushbrook said in reverting to the 2023 season. “The cars aren’t that far apart, aerodynamically between the manufacturers, but they are different. Even those small differences end up in a long green-flag run separating the cars. It’s finding out the fine-tuning knobs that we have. The chassis is very sensitive in the setup. It’s not one big thing. It’s a lot of little things.”
When Ford’s statistics are viewed overall, the manufacturer’s performance in the season’s first 13 races appears better than last year despite the victory total difference. Ford drivers have 18 top-five finishes this year, when compared to 14 last year, and more top-10 finishes, 42 to 35. It also has more laps led, 856 to 847, and more drivers in the top 10 and top 20 in the point standings. This year, Ford has three drivers in the top 10 and seven in the top 20, whereas in 2022 it was two in the top 10 and six in the top 20.
However, when the manufacturer’s results are examined on a race-by-race basis consistency is lacking. Some of the events have been quite dismal while others have been either equivalent to or better than last year.
Ford led just eight laps at Dover earlier this year, all by Brad Keselowski.
In the bleak department:
- Phoenix. Won by Ford last year. In that 312-lap race, Ford possessed half of the top-10 finishers and led 248 laps. This year, it had two top-10 finishers in the 317-lap race and led 37 laps.
- The Circuit of the Americas. Three top-10 finishers this year in the 75-lap event but led only four laps. In the 2022 69-lap event, only two Ford drivers finished in the top 10 but the manufacturer led 16 laps with four different drivers.
- Richmond showed the same imbalance. This year, four Ford drivers finished in the top 10, but Brad Keselowski was the only driver to lead and that was a single lap. Last year at the short track, Ford led 129 laps, but had only two top-10 finishers.
- Bristol Dirt. Last year, Chase Briscoe led 59 laps but this season not a single lap was led by a Ford driver. However, three Ford drivers finished in the top 10 both years.
- Dover. Only eight laps were led by a Ford this year and all of those were by Keselowski. However, three Ford drivers finished in the top 10. Last year, two drivers posted top-10 finishes while Chris Buescher and Ryan Blaney led a total of 26 laps.
- Darlington. Joey Logano gave Ford its third victory in the 2022 season’s first 13 races and led 107 laps in the progress while Kevin Harvick added one for a 108 total. However, only three Fords finished in the top 10. This year, Ford recorded half of the top-10 finishers but led only nine laps.
It took Ford until the seventh race this year—Richmond—to get four drivers in the top 10 and the 1oth event—Talladega—to claim half of the top-10 finishers. That’s a huge change from 2022 when Ford won the season opening Daytona 500 and had six of the top-10 finishers.
Superspeedway-style racing this season has provided Ford with its shining moments. The manufacturer was one position shy of winning the Daytona 500 and Ford drivers led 122 of the 212-laps. Keselowski and Buescher were the top lap leaders, combining for 74 laps.
Joey Logano is fifth in the Cup Series in laps led this year to lead the Ford contingent.
Even before Atlanta was reconfigured, the 1.540-mile track was conducive to good Ford performances due to its long, sweeping turns and short straightaways. With the superspeedway style racing it now produces, this year’s event showcased Ford. Logano won and Keselowski finished second. Ford drivers led 220 of the 260 laps with Logano at the top of the chart with 140.
Talladega also provided Ford with a good showing. The Detroit-based manufacturer claimed half of the top-10 and led 88 laps before once again having to settle for the runner-up position.
“It’s tough right now and it’s probably going to be tough for the foreseeable future until we can make some adjustments,” says Logano, who’s the top Ford in laps led this season with 217 but is fifth overall in the category and eighth overall in points. “When I look at the races that we are executing perfectly from a car setup perspective, a pit road perspective, strategy restarts, if we nail all of those, we can win.
“If we miss one of those, we can’t win.”
Read the full article here