Ford has never really figured it out. Yes, it won championships in 2022, ’23 and ’24 with the Next Gen car, but that just shows how much of a charade the Cup championship is.
They were hollow victories because the Next Gen car has baffled Ford from the beginning; well, maybe Penske’s Joey Logano deserved to win in 2022 because everybody was going through a learning process and nobody had an edge, but now things have changed – except for Ford. Given time to work on the car, Chevy and Toyota – especially Toyota – have adapted to it.
The Next Gen car is totally different from its predecessors. All the cars are basically the same and NASCAR mandated that almost nothing could be done to the bodies.
That has changed everything, especially when it comes to creating aerodynamic downforce. Before, controlling the flow of air over and around the car and keeping air from getting underneath it was the top priority.
But the Next Gen car changed all that with an underwing, a metal plate that covers the bottom of the car.
Since there was virtually nothing the teams could do to the bodies to improve aero, they concentrated on getting a smooth airflow under the car. Using technology, analytics and simulations, the three major manufacturers looked for anything that would give them an edge, and Ford was at an immediate disadvantage.
That was because while Toyota and Chevy were almost totally focused on NASCAR, Ford was not.
Ford was funding a Formula 1 program and also had an interest in endurance racing, and that seemed to be syphoning resources away from its efforts to improve the Next Gen car. On top of that, Ford’s business model had taken a hit and money was tight.
So, the gap between Toyota and Chevy continued to widen, as the Old Guy Sport competition index clearly demonstrates. The OGS competition index is a better measure of competitiveness than the NASCAR points system because the NASCAR system rewards finishing races while the OGS competition index rewards racing.
And if you look at the OGS competition index, you can see that from the beginning, Ford had its hands full with the Next Gen car, and it has gotten worse in recent years.
For example, looking at the big three in 2024, Chevy’s Hendrick led the OGS competition index with 1,616 points and 10 wins (the OGS competition index does not include Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega because luck determines who does well in those races, not how a team performs).
Trailing Hendrick was Toyota’s Joe Gibbs Racing with 1,518 points and six wins. Penske’s four drivers combined for just 745 points but did record seven victories. While Penske fields cars for only three drivers, The Wood brothers entry is included in the Penske totals because Team Penske prepares the car.
In 2025, JGR’s rapidly improving Toyota team shot to the top with 1,793 points and 11 wins. Hendrick finished with 1,412 points and six wins while Team Penske had 888 points and five wins.
And of course this year, JGR and Michael Jordan’s 23XI have totally blitzed the competition. In just 14 races, JGR already has 937 points and five wins (23XI has four more) while Hendrick has just 532 points and only two wins.
Meanwhile, the Fords have barely made it to the starting line. Team Penske has a measly 209 points and just one win, that by Ryan Blaney. Blaney, the best driver in NASCAR not named Denny Hamlin, has seven of Penske’s 13 victories over the three-year period.
One problem for Ford is that two of its teams, the car driven by Austin Cindric and the Wood brothers entry, contribute almost nothing competitively.
In the Next Gen era, Cindric has three wins but two of them are on super speedways and he is virtually never a factor on NASCAR’s regular tracks and ovals.
The same holds true for the Wood brothers, who have only won one non-super speedway race since 2017, that by Josh Berry at Las Vegas in 2025. The Wood brothers recently fired Berry, but clearly, the problem is much bigger than that because given a good car, Berry has proven he can go to the front.
What is troubling, from a Ford standpoint, is not that there are issues with the car, but that Ford doesn’t seem to be close to fixing them.
“You’re always trying to get better,” Blaney commented on NASCAR’ website. “There’s always things we’re looking at doing to try and be a little better here and there. Obviously, you can’t do any body work, but you can always look at things you’re trying to change.
“Like, did this work a little better here? Can we continue to refine that or work on that path? Sometimes you go down the wrong path, you know?” Blaney continued. “And you learn from that.
“I’m not saying we’ve gone down a wrong path, it’s just we’re continuing to try and figure things out to do the best we can. There are things we can do, just try and refine some stuff.
“A little bit goes a long way in this series,” Blaney said, “so hopefully we can just start piecing together little things and they start to add up.”
Brad Keselowski, who once drove for Penske and is now co-owner of his own team, RFK Racing, thinks poor communication and collaboration between the Ford teams is part of the problem.
RFK gets some help from Ford, but Penske is Ford’s primary partner and information doesn’t necessarily flow back and forth between Ford, Penske and RFK.
And that wasn’t helped by the recent retirement of Pat DiMarco, heavily involved in Ford’s research and development and a fixture in the NASCAR garage dating back to his days working with Roush Racing.
DiMarco was the liaison between NASCAR, Ford and its teams and instrumental in Ford’s NASCAR program, and his retirement exacerbates the company’s communication problem.
This is in sharp contrast to the way the Toyota teams work, as Keselowski pointed out on Amazon Prime after the Michigan race.
“Toyota is one of the fastest, if not the best car, in NASCAR,” Keselowski commented. “They’ve got a lot of power, great aerodynamics and the collaboration they have among JGR, 23XI and, even now, with Legacy is very powerful.
“Those three teams can put together all the best thoughts, all the best practices and learn from each other and then bring the best to the track for their three units,” Keselowski said.
“I don’t think we’re seeing any other manufacturer collaborate at the level Toyota is and they’re getting the success you would expect out of that,” Keselowski concluded.
He may be right. There’s an old saying in NASCAR that if you’re not getting better, you’re falling behind. That simply means that if you’re not constantly trying to improve, people will catch up with you.
And that’s the heart of Ford’s problem. Its not getting better and it is falling behind. Way, way, way behind.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Sonoma: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Ty Gibbs. Last year’s winner at Sonoma: 1-Shane van Gisbergen. Top five at Sonoma last year: 1-van Gisbergen, 2-Chase Briscoe, 3-Chase Elliott, 4-Michael McDowell, 5-Christopher Bell.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Coronado picks: 1-van Gisbergen, 2-Reddick, 3-Gibbs. Coronado winner: Corey Heim. OGS season record, 8-6.
OGS competition index top 10 after 14 races: 1-Denny Hamlin 448 points, 2-Reddick 343, 3-Kyle Larson 245, 4-Bell 223, 5-Elliott 181, 6-Gibbs 163, 7-Ryan Blaney 157, 8-van Gisbergen 133, 9-Briscoe 102, 10-Bubba Wallace 83.
OGS competition index top 10 on road courses (tracks most similar to Sonoma):
1-van Gisbergen 121 points, 2-Reddick 91, 3-Gibbs 61, 4-McDowell 57, 5-Heim 52, 6-Wallace 41, 7-Larson 37, 8-Bell 30, 9-Briscoe 24, 10-Blaney 7.
