“He’s Getting a Little More Frustrated!” Dale Earnhardt Jr. Expose the Real Reason Behind Brad Keselowski’s Ford Criticism

One of the key talking this week in the NASCAR media has been the subtle dig from Brad Keselowski targeting Ford. He called out the OEMs for not following the superior collaboration system at Toyota that is helping them dominate, as they won 12 of the 19 races this year. Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked about it on the latest episode of his podcast.

On Dale Jr. Download, the two times Daytona 500 winner pointed out that the RFK Racing driver is using the media to send a message to Ford that they need to be more involved and invested in the sport. Junior believes the 2012 Cup champions is clearly frustrated with the lack of progress with the Ford cars over the last two months in all championships.

Brad isn’t trying to change anything about what Toyota does. He’s only trying to use the media to say so Ford will hear it and go, maybe we need to do something, you know, to make this better… Because I’ve noticed Brad over the last several weeks get more and more vocal about this. He’s getting a little more frustrated with the lack of progress that they’ve been trying to make to close the gap.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said on his podcast.

Brad Keselowski is using the media to get Ford to act. pic.twitter.com/v04Olloz5Y

— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) July 8, 2026

Brad Keselowski is being savvy, according to Dale Earnhardt Jr. as he wants to Ford to realize that they need to support teams more, as the conversations behind the close doors isn’t yielding any results. Being the bold businessman/racer, he is, the veteran is doing everything he can to earn more support for his struggling outfit.

I just think that’s him being savvy because sometime that’s what you do man if you can’t if the conversation behind closed doors isn’t working or if you feel like it’s not working you’ll go in that media center and you’ll make it known you’ll go use that media center to your advantage if you can.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. added.

Later in the same conversation, Junior also shared his feelings about the dominance of Toyota in 2026. At the start he liked the massive wins from Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin. But now he feels other OEM to-tier teams needs to step up their game and get back to winning races again, as one-sided dominance isn’t good for the sport. 

I don’t know how you guys feel, but there for a while I was like kind of digging the Toyota dominance, but as anything, as you know, you get too much of anything, you’re kind of like, ‘All right, now let’s get some other boys up here. Let’s see some, you know, let’s see somebody come up here and challenge them.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. asserted.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. feels Chevy and Ford is closing the gap on Toyota

In the same podcast, Dale Jr, also expressed his feeling that slowly but surly other teams are catching up with TRD. They still have long-run speed advantage owing to the extra downforce their cars have, but in the short-run especially one lap pace, the Chevy and Fords cars have closed the gap significantly.

But it looks to me like the tide is turning a little bit. The Toyotas have an awesome amount of downforce and speed built into their cars, and they are taking advantage of it. I’m telling you, Ford and Chevrolet are closing the gap…They’re starting to show up with the short-run speed they need to be able to match the Toyotas.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said.

The teams stepping up their game won’t be enough to catch Toyota though, as they also need to match the superior execution from the 23XI and JGR crews on race days. It would be interesting to see how the remaining seven races of the regular season is going to pan out.

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