The entire NASCAR Cup Series is a story revolving around Toyotas for now. If it’s not Tyler Reddick winning races, then it’s Denny Hamlin leading. Somewhere, in all of this chaos, NASCAR seems to have forgotten the other two OEMs. Chevy had its moment at Bristol and was pretty competitive last weekend. But on the other hand, Ford is nowhere to be found. So are these early warning signs of something bigger?

Ford is still working forward without hogging the spotlight

It feels like a long time since Ryan Blaney and Ford won their first race of the season at Phoenix. Since then, the Fords have seemingly disappeared from the competition. Joey Logano has yet to find his mojo, and Blaney’s pit crew keeps pushing him down the order. In such a situation, it is easy to count Ford out of the competition.

But NASCAR insider Freddie Kraft wants the audience to take a step back and analyze. “You look at it and you talk about the top 10 in points, but when you kind of break it down to the playoff guys, we’re all pretty even. Toyota’s got six in there. Ford’s got five, Chevy’s got five. You know, you look at Brad; he could have easily won Darlington.

“You know, Ryan, the short tracks, they were really strong. So, I mean, I don’t think there’s any kind of panic button here, right? I mean, they need some speed. They need to find speed on a mile and a half,” he says on his podcast, Door Bumper Clear.

From his explanation, it is quite clear that Ford is actually keeping up with the teams. Their Cup program is very small at this point, and nearly every member of the NASCAR community believes that Ford’s days are numbered. But even so, Ford is not going to give up as easily. After all, they won the NASCAR Cup Series title for three years straight from 2022 to 2024.

Let’s take a look at the 2022 to 2024 championship-winning seasons for Ford. In 2022, Logano claimed his first win at Darlington in May. After winning another race a few weeks later at Watkins Glen, he shifted his pace and stayed away from the pack. Similarly, in 2023, Ryan Blaney won his Playoffs qualifier race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. That too came at the end of May.

It is quite clear that the Fords often rely on specific tracks and utilize them to their advantage. If we take a look at the statistics from the current season, Blaney has six top 10 finishes with one victory. Also, he managed to achieve these numbers while battling issues on the pit road.

Joey Logano may be slightly off the mark in the current season, but he still has multiple top 15 finishes and three top 10s to his name. So there is no solid evidence that proves that Ford is the worst manufacturer in the Cup Series this season.

Furthermore, if we take Chevy’s problems into account, then it feels really small. Ford is not dealing with issues with a new body that can’t seem to extract the best aero and pace. They are just trying to adapt to the new championship format after playing to their strengths and using the ‘win, and you’re in’ rule judiciously for the past years.

The hosts then pointed out Ford’s strategy. Over the years, the Fords made a certain trend in the Cup Series. Their team never really went in for the kill unless they were in the last leg of the Regular season. While this year’s format might not be as suited to such tactics, Freddie Kraft still thinks that Ford is going to work in the same manner.

“I feel like I have answered this question on this podcast probably this time of year for the last five years. You know what I mean? It’s like, when does Ford panic? Uh, in November. They’ll start panicking.”

Moreover, Ford is actually pretty stable in the Cup Series standings right now. All six of their top-performing cars from Team Penske and RFK Racing are in the top 17. Even without the glory of victories, Ford is still hanging in there. Let’s get real, their best tracks haven’t come up yet. Ford knows that the latter half of the season will be the make-or-break mark.

So if their cars are not facing multiple issues and are able to compete in the top 16 for now, why would they want to panic? They know their best tracks. Phoenix showed the true pace that Ryan Blaney holds. He was so quick there that he won the race despite being relegated to the back row multiple times.

Similarly, at Darlington, the three RFK Racing cars were running in the top 5s all day long. Brad Keselowski almost had the victory, if not for the late-race drop in pace.

Speaking of strong tracks and Ford’s advantage, the upcoming weekend holds a lot of promise for them. So it is natural to wonder…

Is Talladega going to be Ford’s answer to the critics?

Let’s start with the bare numbers. Talladega Superspeedway is one of the strongest tracks for Ford Racing. Team Penske has utterly dominated the track with 11 victories in the past 23 races at Talladega. Austin Cindric is actually the defending winner of the Jack Link’s 500 race.

For a while now, Ford’s NASCAR drivers have shown that they love racing at Talladega. Brad Keselowski and Team Penske started a streak in 2014, which was continued by the drivers who came after him. Logano won the Talladega race in October 2015, only to give way to Keselowski again in the spring.

The October race at Talladega in particular was won by Ford for six straight years from 2014 to 2019. Even after that, Ryan Blaney claimed two victories at Talladega between 2020 and 2023. Currently, Brad Keselowski is the biggest threat at these chaotic tracks. With six wins under his belt, he is the driver with the most wins at Talladega among the entire grid.

At this point, the conclusion seems pretty clear. In their quest for championships during the Playoffs era, the Talladega Superspeedway was Ford’s main focus. The reason for that was simple. Talladega appears twice on the schedule. Once in the Regular season and once during the Playoffs.

By maxing out their pace for this specific track, Ford was able to guarantee themselves a good finish in the championships and try to chase the title in the final race of the season. Thus, armed with the experience and confidence of Talladega Superspeedway’s pace, Ford might end up making the desired comeback this weekend.