“It’s not acceptable,” Ford demands its NASCAR cup series teams to step up their game before the playoffs
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Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, and Chase Briscoe
Ford has been the NASCAR front runner for over a decade and the premier car manufacturers’ partnership with the foremost stock car racing series has been fruitful for both parties. The 2022 season saw NASCAR introducing the Next-Gen car aimed at increasing the competitiveness of the sport while at the same time giving the manufacturers the opportunity to come up with their products for the future.
But when compared to Chevy and Toyota teams in 2022, who have their own demons to overcome, Ford Next-Gen cars seem to lack which is represented by the fact that Chevy has 13 wins and Toyota has 5 wins so far while Ford has only 4. Considering how many drivers represent ford in the grid the situation is absurd.
The four wins Ford has come from three different drivers with the solo wins coming from Chase Briscoe of SHR and Austin Cindric of Team Penske while Joey Logano won it twice for the Penske driving the No:22 Mustang. At the same time, Ford has the likes of Ryan Blaney and Kevin Harvick on their line-up who ranks top in the championship table but is yet to cement a playoff spot as they remain winless.
Now Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsports, has come forth expressing his displeasure on the form and wins accumulated by the Ford Contingent in this year’s cup series acknowledging that the four wins they have secured just aren’t enough pointing out they are in dire need of improvements.
Find out what Mark Rushbrook said
Mark Rosebrook acknowledged that the four wins are not enough and acceptable as the team needs more drivers getting wins and finishing among the front runner and more than four drivers getting into the playoffs. He added that the tracks and the Next-Gen car make their aim a hard task and the number of races left in the regular season isn’t also sufficient to make a proper comeback.
“Four wins is not enough. It’s not acceptable. We need to get more wins. We need to have drivers further up the standings and hopefully at least four if not more drivers into the playoffs. It’s certainly going to be hard with where we are with only four regular-season races left. It’s been a struggle with the new car, the new package with getting our head around it, and how to set it up properly going to the track and optimizing it,” Mark Rushbrook said.
The top Ford official went on to say that they have witnessed a lot of success with their track speed but are still lacking the wins which put forth a lot of work ahead of them to do. He points out that the teams need to bring forth advancements and modifications to the engine, aerodynamics and the chassis of the cars.
“We’ve seen a lot of success with the speed at different tracks where we have understood it, but we still didn’t bring the win home. So, there’s a lot of work to do, but that’s racing. We always need to make all elements of the car better — the engine, the aerodynamics, the chassis, the setup, the tire model, our simulator model — and that’s what we’re working on. We have a lot of meetings and advancements with our teams to try and do better every week,” Mark Rushbrook added.
The Ford team has the best opportunity coming the way to make them as they enter the Michigan race weekend which historically has been productive for the team. The best outcome the ford team can expect from the race day is a win for Ryan Blaney as it will surely help him get out of the pressure situation he is in right now to a situation where he can focus on winning the championship.
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Justin P Joy
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