Toyota Racing Development growing concerned over NASCAR engine failures

After a summer of failures, Toyota Racing Development is ringing the alarm around the integrity of their engines. So far this season, four Toyota NASCAR drivers have had major issues on track.

All four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers, Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Christopher Bell have all had engine problems this season. It started out a nuisance and is now a serious issue for the Cup Series program.

Toyota Racing Development does a lot of great things in NASCAR. Right now, they have to stop the bleeding before it is too late.

“If we didn’t beforehand, we certainly now have a concern with our valve springs,” general manager of TRD, Tyler Gibbs told Kelly Crandall of Racer.com. “The root cause seems to be some inconsistency in the quality of our valve springs. We are working closely with our suppliers to correct these issues.”

Denny Hamlin at Sonoma, Ty Gibbs at Indy, and most recently Martin Truex Jr. at Richmond are all recent examples of the engine failures. Toyota has a lot riding on the line to end the NASCAR regular season, too.

So, it’s all-hands on deck for TRD.

“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 went on. “We are confident that this remediation step will give us the durability margin we need. Our team partners, including our drivers, remain tremendously supportive.

“Our goal and expectation each year is perfect engine reliability. We had only one failure in 2023. TRD takes full accountability for the issues we have had this year, and we have fallen far short of what is acceptable. We will not rest until we regain our form. And rest assured, we will.”

Toyota has a lot on the line this NASCAR season

With three races left in the regular season, the NASCAR drivers in the Toyota camp have a lot to race for. Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick are more than capable of winning the regular season championship at the moment if they continue to race well.

Then you have Bubba Wallace. Wallace is 15th in the playoff points right now. He has overcome a 51-point deficit after Nashville to take a 3-point lead on the cutline after Richmond. Both Reddick and Wallace have been two of the best drivers in the Cup Series in the last five races.

So, engine failures are a big deal. Toyota wants as many drivers in the NASCAR Playoffs as possible. They can’t do that if the engines don’t make it to the end of the race. Right now, it’s been one car at a time, but what happens when it’s a full-on failure across the board?

Toyota has to figure out the engine issues with the NASCAR Cup Series. There is too much riding on the end of the regular season to have these problems now.