“That’s a Losing Proposition”—NASCAR Insider Heavily Scrutinizes Joe Gibbs’s Strategy Blunder After Getting Agitated by Martin Truex Jr’s Playoff Misery

Can the same thing happen twice? It did for Martin Truex Jr in Las Vegas on Sunday. It was just last year in this exact same race that Truex Jr lost out on a potential win because his crew chief took the gamble to not change tires during the final restart of the race. A year later, one might have figured that the #19 team would have learned a thing or two from their past mistakes. But that does not seem to be the case.

In the latest edition of the South Point 400, similar scenes took place as the former champion succumbed to a P8 finish from being race leader. Taking the mic on the podcast, “The Teardown,” veteran journalist Jordan Bianchi expressed his frustration with the consistent underperformance.

The #19 team decides to gamble yet again in Vegas despite past failures

At the end of the first stage caution on Sunday’s race,

Joe Gibbs Racing‘s #19 crew chief James Small took a decision that he wasn’t unfamiliar with. He radioed in to leave Martin Truex Jr‘s Camry on the track after the 14-lap run it had made on fresh tires. While the rest of the grid came in for fresh tires, the #19 car was the only one left on the track. Though the driver was hesitant to follow suit, he obliged and stayed afloat on the 1.5-mile speedway. As the race resumed, the car began bleeding heavily and lost positions in traffic. The worn-out tires couldn’t keep up for much longer and never made up for the deficit.

Talking about the wrong call from the crew chief, Jordan Bianchi said,

“You had to scratch and claw and fight to get back in the top 10 after a strategy call that frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. We saw the difference. We knew what the difference was in tires when the #20 and the #19 stayed out six longer laps in the first green flag run. And we saw the difference in timing there and that was huge. I just didn’t understand why staying out on old tires there… That’s a losing proposition and it almost bit them bad.”

The P8 finish was the driver’s best since the regular season race at the Watkins Glen International. Keeping the troubling fact that the team has basically just repeated their mistake from last year aside, their unexplainable troubles are a big cause of concern for Joe Gibbs. Jordan Bianchi took up the matter of firefighting that the #19 team is forced to do every week.

Watch Story: Martin Truex Jr’s Playoff Hopes Dim as Joe Gibbs Racing Struggles

The curious case of the continual hurdles that Martin Truex Jr faces every week

Martin Truex Jr’s finish at Las Vegas was his best in the 2023 playoffs. Struggling with his car and crew since the onset of the first stage, the driver quickly fell out of favor for being the championship favorite. Going to Vegas, it was expected that his fortunes might change and he would bounce back with a better outing. While Sunday’s race did fall along the lines of that, it wasn’t nearly enough for a team of the #19’s caliber.

Voicing his exasperation, Jordan Bianchi continued, “When is this team going to put together just a normal race? Like just a quiet like right in the top 10, got stage points you know maybe we’re in the mix for the win. It just feels like every single week this team is always having to figure out or overcome something or other.”

Las Vegas put in Truex Jr’s pockets points that put him 2 clear above the cut-off line to make it to the Championship 4. But this is a stage of the playoffs where mistakes are extremely costly. In the next two races in Homestead-Miami and Martinsville, a wrong call on the lines of Sunday’s could effectively end the #19 team’s title hopes.

Read More: “Dropped Like a Rock”- Martin Truex Jr Shockingly Acquits Crew Chiefs in Pit-Call Fiasco