When Toyota entered NASCAR\u2019s premier series in 2007, the manufacturer was concerned more about making races than winning 200 of them.<\/p>\n
In its first year, Toyota drivers suffered through nearly 100 failed qualifying attempts \u2014 but the lack of speed didn\u2019t dissuade Joe Gibbs Racing from signing with the automaker for the 2008 season despite its drivers\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, I was worried when we switched over,\u201d JGR driver Denny Hamlin said Sunday after winning at World Wide Technology Raceway to make Toyota the fourth manufacturer to reach the 200-victory mark in Cup. \u201cObviously, it was a big leap of faith by everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing. The drivers were kind of like an innocent bystander. We were going to live and die by those decisions that JGR made. It turned out to be the best partnership that they could imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two races into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Toyota\u2019s blazing pace in trying to end a six-year championship drought has emerged as a prevailing storyline.<\/p>\n
After Toyota swept the top four and took six of the top seven spots in the playoff opener at Darlington Raceway, Hamlin and teammate Chase Briscoe claimed the top two spots at the 1.25-mile oval outside St. Louis that commonly is known as Gateway.<\/p>\n
Toyota\u2019s Camrys have led 515 of 607 laps in the playoffs, and their all-around performance has left defending series champion Joey Logano marveling at the gap with Ford and Chevrolet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re ridiculously fast,\u201d Logano said when asked about Toyota after his No. 22 Ford took fifth at Gateway. \u201cThey\u2019ve got a lot of grip, and they\u2019ve got a lot of horsepower. We\u2019ve got a lot of work to do to catch up. We\u2019ve got to be absolutely perfect in every category to contend, and we need them to make mistakes, which they do. We have the potential to do it, it\u2019s just going to be really challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logano has won two of the past three titles for Team Penske by winning the season finale at Phoenix, a track that is similar in size and shape to Gateway.<\/p>\n
After failing to lead a lap at Phoenix in his past two Championship 4 appearances in 2020-21, Hamlin is hopeful of being a factor again after leading a race-high 75 of 240 laps at Gateway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember showing up to the championship race in 2021 knowing we had no shot, that we weren\u2019t good on the short tracks,\u201d he said. \u201cI do feel like our cars are good right now. This is a track that you can draw some connections to Phoenix, the distance and the banking. You just never know. The Penske cars have come out of nowhere the last few years when you didn\u2019t think they had the speed. They just showed up one week and, poof, they had it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just never know in this sport. It ebbs and it flows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toyota Racing Development president Tyler Gibbs also is cautiously optimistic about the consistency across the manufacturer\u2019s nine-car lineup. Though Joe Gibbs Racing is Toyota\u2019s winningest organization with 166 victories (56 apiece by Hamlin and Kyle Busch, who won the most recent title for JGR and Toyota in 2019 ), 23XI Racing won the Brickyard 400 with Bubba Wallace (who has five top-10 finishes in seven races), and Legacy Motor Club has three top fives in the past three races.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tracks have suited us well and our drivers well,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cI think execution is going to be what wins races in the playoffs and is going to win the championship at Phoenix. The cars are so close, and that execution can take all that away. We\u2019re just going to keep our heads down and keep preparing the way we have. The work that the teams have done is incredible. We had some stumbles at the beginning of the year, and we worked really hard to eliminate those and be ready for the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Career expiration date<\/p>\n
Hamlin reaffirmed after his 59th career victory that \u201cthe countdown has begun\u201d to the end of his driving career. After signing a two-year extension through 2027 in June, he has 70 races remaining \u2014 the eight left on the 2025 schedule, plus the next two 36-race seasons \u2014 and he said the timeline is helping him stay motivated to remain in top form.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just not going to leave this sport on my deathbed, just leaking oil and running in the back of the pack,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cI have way too much pride for that. I\u2019m way too cocky for that. There\u2019s just no way. I want to be able to win my last race. To do that, I\u2019m going to have to retire when I\u2019m racing like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorry goes only so far<\/p>\n
Ryan Blaney rallied for fourth at Gateway despite falling to 18th after being spun by Kyle Larson with 105 laps remaining. Blaney still was miffed after a postrace apology from Larson, who said he misjudged the distance from his No. 5 Chevy to Blaney\u2019s No. 12 Ford entering Turn 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just said he made a mistake, and that\u2019s fine, but at the end of the day, I still got turned,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cHe came from all the way on the bottom of the racetrack and hit me in the left rear. I know he most likely didn\u2019t mean to do it, but it happened anyway. And so that\u2019s just one I\u2019ve got to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
This story has been corrected to show that Joey Logano finished fifth, not fourth, at Gateway.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Toyota entered NASCAR\u2019s premier series in 2007, the manufacturer was concerned more about making races than winning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":218369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1441,11130,16412,114118,1406,1425,9651,62,1103,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-218368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-championship","9":"tag-denny-hamlin","10":"tag-joe-gibbs-racing","11":"tag-logano","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-playoffs","14":"tag-speed","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-toyota","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115186139451426292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}