NASCAR: Toyota’s top driver is a surprise, and that’s a good sign
By Bryce Turner
Kurt Busch is currently the top Toyota driver in the NASCAR Cup Series standings, which is a good sign for the manufacturer after a slow start to 2022.
With a third place finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Kurt Busch became Toyota’s top driver in the point standings, currently sitting in fifth.
With five races in the books, Busch’s points position is a bit of a surprise, as he’s in his first season in an expansion car at 23XI Racing. He currently ranks higher than not only the flagship #23 Toyota of Bubba Wallace but all four cars from the powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) stable as well.
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With Toyota off to a slow start this season compared to both Chevrolet and Ford, Busch’s strong start is a good sign that the manufacturer is moving in the right direction.
Busch has three top 10 finishes so far this year, which ties Wallace’s total from all of last season. He has two top five finishes, just one shy of Wallace’s 2021 total, and a series-best average finish of 9.6.
That comparison is impressive for a sophomore team, and Busch’s Atlanta result marked his best finish of the young season.
“Our main goal was to run all 500 miles,” Busch told reporters, including RACER’s Kelly Crandall, after Sunday’s event. “The car has a couple scratches on it, but we were out there for every run to gather data.”
Toyota is at a numbers disadvantage, with just six cars across two teams, so having a contending organization other than JGR will help him collect better data and ultimately keep up with the competition.
On the surface, it seems like there is optimism within the Toyota camp. Kurt’s younger brother Kyle Busch spoke about the manufacturer’s slow start prior to the Atlanta race.
“We kind of noticed coming out of the gate, testing and things like that…we’re probably the slowest manufacturer, but it’s not by much,” Busch said in an interview during NASCAR RaceDay on Fox. “We’ve got a little bit of stuff that we feel like is coming and some ideas in which we haven’t necessarily gotten to yet, so hopefully once we can formulate some of those plans…I feel like we’ll be right with the rest of them.”
Kyle actually entered the race in second place in the standings but dropped to 11th after a poor result.
Despite being winless and having no driver higher than eighth in points, JGR have still been in the mix. Their four cars have combined to lead 195 laps so far this year, and both Busch and Martin Truex Jr. have multiple top 10 finishes.
It’s the team’s seven DNFs that have really hurt them, including five that were the result of crashes, so it would seem that better luck and more time to adjust to the new car will help them return to championship form. JGR have decades of experience as a top-tier team, so Toyota can trust that they will be able to turn things around.
23XI Racing started the year with more to prove, so the fact that they are ahead of JGR in the standings could be a sign that Toyota is close to having both organizations compete at a high level this season.
Another good sign from Toyota’s surprise leader is that bringing Kurt Busch into the fold appears to be paying off.
The addition of Busch to the Toyota stable can help the manufacturer make adjustments quicker with the feedback they’ll be able to get from a driver of his caliber, a 23-year veteran with 33 career victories and a championship on his Cup Series resume.
Busch has helped teams improve before. He had 11 top five finishes and an average finish of 14.7 with Furniture Row Racing in 2013, his only full season with the team, after they finished the previous year with just one top five finish and an average finish of 20.5.
Most recently, Busch took over Jamie McMurray’s ride at Chip Ganassi Racing in 2019, and he immediately recorded the most top 10 finishes and the best average finish the ride had seen in a decade of action. McMurray hadn’t visited victory lane since 2013, but Busch won a race in each of his three seasons with the organization.
The strong start is a good sign that Busch can provide the same value for 23XI Racing and Toyota as a whole.
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While it’s a surprise to see Kurt Busch as the top Toyota driver in the NASCAR Cup Series standings after five races, it’s a good sign for the manufacturer that they’re on the right track after a slow start to the season.