Martin Truex Jr.’s ‘screwed up’ pit-stop strategy took a toll on his probable victory at Richmond Raceway

Martin Truex Jr. who drives the No.19 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing competing full-time in the Cup Series had to let go of his potential win during the Toyota Owners 400 on Sunday.

Martin Truex Jr. has had a pretty impressive career this season with three top 10s coming in Pennzoil 400, Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500, and the Echopark Automotive Texas Grand Prix and two top 15s in Daytona 500 and Auto Club 400 with just one disqualification in Ruoff Mortgage 500.

Martin Truex Jr.’s pre-planned strategy went wrong and eventually led him to drop to 4^th from a potential victory. He was competing with William Byron’s strategy of one-stop but ended up fumbling the strategies and placed 4^th in the Toyota Owners 400.

“It’s frustrating,” says Martin Truex Jr. after the strategy goes wrong

Martin Truex Jr. had planned to go with the race lead William Byron’s strategy of having just one pit stop during the final stage. Martin Truex Jr. said that messing up the strategies was frustrating but that it was part of the day and was impressed with the crew chief, James Small, and his Auto-Owners Camry TRD was super-fast in clean air.

“I mean, it’s frustrating. But that’s part of it here. It’s part of the whole day, obviously, we did well there for a while. James (Small, crew chief) did a great job all day with strategy, getting us upfront, getting us the lead. Our Auto-Owners Camry TRD was super-fast out front, super-fast in clean air,” said Martin Truex Jr.

He also added saying that they tried to gamble with Byron’s strategy and Byron tried to do the same eventually messing up is own and placing 3^rd. He further added saying that he was really happy with the team’s work and that they are heading in the right direction than that of Phoenix Raceway.

“At the end, I think we just tried to gamble, tried to gamble on beating (Byron). He ended up trying to do our strategy, which we both screwed up, I think we had the best car. Doesn’t matter, overall, I’m really proud of our guys and really a step in the right direction from Phoenix,” added Martin Truex Jr.

Will Martin Truex Jr. continue with this new mindset and end up with 2022 being his best season yet?

Also read: “Him and I will settle it one day” John Hunter Nemechek after Ty Gibbs prods him to secure the Xfinity Series win at Richmond Raceway

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