NASCAR star Brad Keselowski has exposed a weakness that he believes is holding Ford back compared to one of their Cup Series rivals.
Toyota has been the dominant OEM in the series this season, winning 11 of the 18 races so far, and on the flip side, Ford has just one win, which came all the way back in March.
Toyota's victories have been spread out between Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI, with Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin having been in particularly hot form.
Now, speaking to the media at Chicagoland, Keselowski believes that the alliance that exists between Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI has only elevated Toyota's performance this season, suggesting that Ford should follow suit and have two 'A teams'.
READ MORE: NASCAR Qualifying Today: Chicagoland start times, schedule, TV channel and live stream
Brad Keselowski highlights key Toyota strength
“What’s become unique, I think, over the last two or three years specifically is, and I’ll give a lot of credit to Toyota for this, they’ve recognized that that stalemate is not necessarily good for the sport or for them as an OEM,” Keselowski told the media on Friday.
“And they’ve done a lot of things to push elite collaboration amongst their top organizations so that they have, for reference, two ‘A’ organizations [JGR and 23XI], rather than an ‘A,’ ‘B’ and ‘C.’ As I’ve seen to date, the other OEMs have not done that, and Toyota is making them pay for that with results on the race track. They deserve credit for that.
“The challenge that I see is: Will the other two OEMs actually react to that? I haven’t seen that at the moment. I think RFK is doing all the things it needs to do to position itself to be successful if that were to happen, particularly in the Ford camp.
"But at this point, we have not seen the level of collaboration at Ford that we see at Toyota, and it creates challenges for the program. And I have not seen from the outside, I’m not inside Chevrolet, the same things there.
"So we’re having one of these seasons where it looks like Toyota is going to dominate throughout, and there’s a great argument to be made that they’re winning races in the boardroom with really great decision-making.”
Hamlin: 23XI pays for JGR alliance
23XI, though, pays for the privilege of being allied with Joe Gibbs Racing, as Denny Hamlin later pointed out when asked about the dynamic between the Toyota teams when he addressed the media in Illinois.
“I certainly think that Toyota has a role in it, but I don’t think Toyota is that much different than any of the other manufacturers. We pay a fee, so that’s the difference," Hamlin explained.
"It’s not like Toyota forces us to work together. We chose to be affiliated with Joe Gibbs Racing and we felt like it would shorten up the learning curve and get us competitive quicker. And now it’s a relationship we still pay, but the relationship definitely goes back and forth.
"There’s certainly information going both ways through that tunnel, so it works in that kind of way. But it’s not something that is forced by the manufacturers, I would think that probably we get the same amount of stuff. Ourselves and Legacy [Motor Club, another Toyota team], is no different than Penske and RFK.
"I think that probably we get the same amount of stuff that we share that they get, but we just chose to have an alliance, and that’s what I felt like was the best business decision.”
NASCAR TODAY: Denny Hamlin speculation addressed and team owner talks tough financial reality
