The Toyota-backed teams in the Cup Series are performing strongly this season, and when there are such humongous performance gaps, people often ask questions. A recent theory floating around online is that Toyota engines are racing with added horsepower this season. 

On the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Tommy Baldwin pushed back against this theory, stating that all three manufacturers were within 1% of the NASCAR limit. He then also explained that while the engine power is tightly regulated, success often depends on proper planning and engine usage throughout the season, which can create performance disparities. 

“I mean, look, you got the best of the best in all three manufacturers. I mean, you're going to have good engines. It's all again, you know, we have an engine, we have only a certain amount of engines that we run during the year, right? They get sealed, and you have to rerun these engines, I think, three times now. 

"So, again, it's all about when you decide to put a fresh one in, right? That you might be running up against somebody that has three races, you know, it's its third race versus the first race, right? So, you might see a little bit different from that, but again, it's all about proper planning.”

When asked on the podcast if Toyota engines were the best in terms of horsepower, he simply disagreed, saying, “No, I don't think so”, adding that dyno numbers don't always tell the whole story, and that the results can depend on how the tests were executed. 

After the last race at Chicagoland Speedway, there has been a widespread theory online that Toyota is somehow running on more powerful engines, as a result of the antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR that was settled out of court.

However, if there was some truth to it, Ford should have had an advantage too, given Front Row Motorsport’s involvement in the lawsuit. 

This isn’t even the first time that Toyota has been accused. It was infamously banned from the World Rally Championship in 1995, after a sudden inspection of the ST205 Celica GT-Four resulted in the discovery of the turbo restrictor bypass cheat, which was so stunning that the then FIA President, Max Mosley, found it ‘impressive.’ 

Brad Keselowski knows why Toyota is in such a strong position

The RFK Racing driver and co-owner feels that Toyota has a much higher level of collaboration and data-sharing compared to Ford and Chevrolet. He believes that the team is winning with decisions taken at the boardroom level and in terms of hiring, which is similar to Tommy Baldwin’s observation. 

He also argued that Toyota does not have the organizational ladders or priorities that would hamper the performance of teams on the track, instead prioritizing teams as two A teams rather than an A-B setup. 

On the eero 400 pre-race presser, he said, “I'll give a lot of credit to Toyota for this is they've recognized that that stalemate is not necessarily good for the sport or for them as an OEM and they they've done a lot of things to push elite collaboration amongst their top organizations so that they have, for reference two kind of A organizations rather than a A-B. 

"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 racetrack. They deserve credit for that. It's a really great behind-the-scenes move that they've taken full advantage of and in a way that is legal and probably should be.”

Read more at RFK Racing Digest! 

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason