Editor’s note: This continues the series of season reviews for select 2022 NASCAR Cup Series drivers.
See more: Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, Alex Bowman, Kevin Harvick, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suárez, Chris Buescher, Chase Briscoe
Driver: Martin Truex Jr.
Car: No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry TRD
Crew chief: James Small
Final 2022 ranking: 17th
Key stats: 4 top fives, 15 top 10s, 1 pole, 572 laps led
How 2022 ended: Some seasons end with a metaphorical (and perhaps literal) roar of success. Others, meanwhile, end with a whimper. Truex Jr.’s 2022 campaign illustrated more of the latter concept. The 42-year-old finished 20th or worse in five of the postseason’s 10 races. Even a respectable eighth-place finish in the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway on Aug. 28 – despite getting caught up in a Lap 102 crash – couldn’t squeak the No. 19 into the playoff field. From no playoff bid to zero wins (a first for Truex Jr. in a season since 2014), 2022 marked itself as a subpar season for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
Best race: New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 17. Starting on the pole and leading 172 of the 301 total laps at Loudon — approximately 30% of the total laps he’d lead in 2022 – put Truex Jr. in a respectable position that inevitably netted the No. 19 driver a fourth-place finish. And while he didn’t end up with the win – despite winning Stage 1 and 2 and leading the first 95 laps to begin the race – Truex Jr. still cemented his New England consistency, even without a win at the track in his Cup career. Truex Jr. has finished inside the top 10 in eight of his last 10 races at New Hampshire and inside the top five in five of those 10 contests.
RELATED: Martin Truex. Jr. comes up short at NH again: ‘Just the Loudon curse for me’
Other season highlights: Bouncing off Truex Jr.’s success at New Hampshire came what looked to be a potential breakthrough for the No. 19 Toyota when looking at the total results from July and August. Five top-10 finishes over the nine-race span – and only two finishes outside the top 20 to boot – looked to be the remedy to inconsistency that seemingly plagued Truex Jr. throughout the opening half of the season. His eighth-place finish at Daytona to close out the stretch was his second-best finish at the track in his last eight races there. (He finished fourth at the track on Aug. 29, 2020.)
Stat to know: 14.9 average finish in 2022. Naturally, a down year in 2022 will lead to dips in several categories, and Truex Jr.’s average finish was not immune. Truex Jr.’s average finish mark of 14.9 was his lowest in eight years since his 20.2 average finish in 2014. From 2015-2021, Truex Jr. held an average finish mark of 11.3. Rewinding the clocks to those levels of production will surely be on the 2023 docket.
Quotable: “The same. You just go out and fight, man. You go give it all you got. There’s no magic triggers. Just go trying to figure it out and work hard and race hard and see what we can come up with.” – Truex Jr. after his seventh-place finish on Aug. 14 at Richmond Raceway.
RELATED: Martin Truex Jr. salvages seventh at Richmond, slips in playoff picture vs. Blaney
Looking ahead: Continuing to fight will be the mantra Truex Jr. rolls with heading into 2023. Another year with James Small as crew chief, not to mention more experience with the Next Gen car, should help serve Truex Jr. well. After all, he won multiple races in four of his previous five seasons heading into 2022. The 2023 season might be the start of another such streak.