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David Wilson, the head of Toyota Racing Development, recently addressed Martin Truex Jr.'s engine failure at Richmond, acknowledging shortcomings in Toyota's engine. Wilson, in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, accepted that their engine had an issue with valve springs, which jeopardized the Joe Gibbs Racing driver's race at Richmond Raceway last Saturday.
Toyota's engine problems have been a recurring issue this season, and Truex Jr.'s Richmond misfortune exacerbated the situation. The JGR driver's engine failure marked the fifth such incident for Toyota in 2024, a stark contrast to the single occurrence in the previous year.
Earlier this week, Tyler Gibbs, the general manager of Toyota Racing Development, revealed that they are actively addressing the reliability issues, particularly focusing on the valve spring problem, something Wilson reiterated.
"Most recently Martin's failure on Saturday night in Richmond was, we did have an 'aha' moment, and because of that failure,' Wilson said. "The four previous issues were all different. The good news is three out of the four were explainable and most importantly they were fixable." (0:20-0:45)
"But when Martin broke the valve Saturday night it was you know it matched the failure all the way back to Gateway that Christopher Bell had and just underscored for us, 'okay, you know we do in fact have a trend and an issue with valve springs," he added. (0:46-1:04)
Prior to Truex Jr.'s Richmond issue, Christopher Bell encountered a similar situation in St. Louis. Just a week later, Denny Hamlin experienced the same issue, resulting in an engine blowout.
Only Ty Gibbs has faced engine troubles multiple times this season. The first incident occurred at Pocono Raceway on July 14, followed by another just a week later at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 21.
TRD GM: Partners and drivers remained supportive to Toyota
Tyler Gibbs, the general manger of Toyota Racing Development, recently opened up about Toyota's long-time issues with the engine, stating that the team is working diligently to resolve the issues. He added that the Japanese manufacturer's partner teams and drivers have been amazingly supportive.
"We sent a TRD ‘fire team’ from our Costa Mesa (Calif.) engine shop to make tuning updates to all our engines heading to Michigan this weekend,” Gibbs said. “We are confident that this remediation step will give us the durability margin we need. Our team partners, including our drivers, remain tremendously supportive."
As things stand, three Toyota drivers (Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell) are in the playoffs, while three drivers (Martin Truex Jr. Ty Gibbs, and Bubba Wallace) are above the playoff cutline. This calls for absolute urgency within the Japanese heavyweights to sort out the reliability issue before the playoffs commence.
