Amid Chevrolets Dominance, Toyota Still Lagging Behind Ford Despite Both Going Under the Knife in the Off-Season

There was a lot of excitement surrounding Ford and Toyota’s season before the campaign had begun, as they had both come out with new cars. Ford has their Dark Horse Mustang and Toyota has the new Camry. However, after 3 races in the NASCAR Cup Series, it is Chevrolet on top, winning all 3 of them. Speaking about the manufacturers on a recent episode of the ‘Door, Bumper, Clear’ podcast, a Toyota insider expressed confidence in their cars but remained wary of one aspect where the Ford appeared to be better.

Ford swept NASCAR last season, winning the Cup, Xfinity, and Truck Series. No one expected that kind of dominance from them during the season, especially given the intense battles between Chevys and Toyotas, who were locked in countless battles over race wins. This year, Chevy has had the best start. But, as history is witness, one can never tell who will win it all at the end of the season.

NASCAR insider is concerned about just one of Ford’s aspects

Speaking about the manufacturers, Bubba Wallace‘s spotter Freddie Kraft, said that despite the lackluster start to the season, he could see a lot of positives from the race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday. 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick ran exceptionally well, even though he missed out on a P1 finish to Kyle Larson. At the end of the day, it was Chevrolet that took the checkered flag, but the veteran spotter was pleased with how a Toyota car had performed on the 1.5-mile track.

“Chevys are the same. So they already know what to expect going there more so than…obviously Toyota and Ford can run a million sims but until you put the thing on the race track around other cars, you don’t really know exactly what you got and the Chevy guys do. They know like they went back there, I’m sure they had similar notes to what they dominated last fall with and you’ve seen the same cars up front dominating. So it’d be interesting to see…it’s encouraging for me to see all the Toyotas up front for our season. It’s encouraging for me to see that kind of speed on a mile-and-a-half which kind of dominates our season,” he said.

However, not everything was positive for Toyota from Las Vegas, as far as Kraft’s perspective is concerned. The veteran spotter noticed something that might pose a concern and that was the Dark Horse Mustang’s speed when it goes on a long run. A prime example of this was Noah Gragson in the #10 car who started the race in P30 and finished an impressive P6.

“It seemed to me like the Fords were good on long runs yesterday…the guys that were good on long runs were typically Fords. I noticed the #12, made a lot of progress…#10 was another one, like long run he took off….there were a couple of Fords I realized were making big gains at the end of runs,” he added.

However, for the co-host and fellow spotter, TJ Majors, it was not really a surprise to see the Fords and Toyotas lagging behind the Chevys in the opening few weeks of the season.

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Ford and Toyota need to prepare for a learning curve before challenging Chevy

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The veteran spotter explained how Chevrolet knew exactly what they were going to get with their car since it was not a new model. However, the new Camry and the Dark Horse Mustang had never been tested in a full NASCAR season, so it will take teams some time to figure out how to optimize them before mounting a challenge. Hopefully, it won’t take them a long time. Nobody wants to see one manufacturer dominate every single race of a season like in some other motorsports competitions.

“You can’t take your same setup when you have a new car and expect it to just pop right in and be the exact same cause there is different downforce, I mean the front and rear, so it’s gonna be a learning curve a little bit. I do think they’ll get stronger, I think Fords and Toyotas will get stronger as we go,” Majors also chimed in.

This learning curve will be an extremely intriguing thing to keep an eye on as the season rolls. When do you think the Toyotas and Fords will start consistently challenging the Chevrolets every week?

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