Ty Gibbs’ skid continues, but performance metrics offer encouraging signs

Three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers scored top-10 finishes in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, led by Denny Hamlin's sterling drive to his sixth triumph at the Virginia short track. The fourth JGR pilot, 22-year-old Ty Gibbs, was poised to join his teammates in that results bracket until contact at the three-quarter mark of Sunday's 400-lapper knocked him down. Remarkably, Gibbs' 13th-place finish in Sunday's Cook Out 400 was his best in Cup Series' seven races so far this year. The former Xfinity Series champ remained in the longest skid of his young Cup Series career, dating back to last season when he finished 30th or worse in the final five races of 2024. Despite the lackluster result, some positives can be drawn from an evaluation of Gibbs' on-track data. According to NASCAR Insights analysis, Gibbs was the only driver who achieved top-10 ratings in all four of the key performance metrics during Sunday's race, measuring among the field's front-runners in speed rating (seventh), passing (sixth), defense (fourth) and restarts (third). His No. 54 team was also eighth in a fifth category -- pit crew rating -- assessed by analytics partner Racing Insights. RELATED: Cup Series standings | About NASCAR Insights analysis Joe Gibbs Racing competition director Chris Gabehart noted after Sunday's race how uneven the results have been for the organization's youngest driver and his No. 54 Toyota team, but also highlighted encouraging signs from recent events. Gabehart said Gibbs was among the strongest in longer practice runs (15-, 20- and 25-lap averages) the last two weeks, but also pointed to Gibbs' resilience and how reaching Victory Lane -- as Hamlin's No. 11 team and crew chief Chris Gayle did Sunday -- was an achievable goal. "The part that I'm most proud about where the 54 is concerned is it's a tremendous amount of adversity," Gabehart said, "but I always say champions aren't made on their best days, they're made on their worst, and Ty Gibbs and the 54 group's going through a real rough stretch the last 14 races or so, but they're starting to pull out of it, and Ty Gibbs is learning a lot about adversity and how to handle it and see it out to the end of these races and take opportunities when they'll come to you, rather than not be there for them. So yeah, absolutely. And it's going to make it's going to make victory so much sweeter for that group, no different than Gayle and the 11 was today. It's all the tough times and how hard this sport is on every minute of every day that makes the win so sweet, and the 54's opportunity for that's right around the corner." Gibbs currently ranks 31st in the Cup Series standings, improving three spots after Sunday's result. He finished fourth in Stage 2 on Sunday, but his encouraging run to the finish was short-circuited in the 297th of 400 laps when fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick nudged him into a spin that also caught Zane Smith up in the melee. Gibbs vowed revenge against Reddick over his team communications, and the two drivers had a civil discussion about the incident while standing alongside the No. 54 Toyota on pit road post-race. MORE: Three Up, Three Down: Martinsville Joe Gibbs, the team owner and Ty Gibbs' grandfather, acknowledged the on-track hardship for the No. 54 group early in the 2025 campaign. But the 84-year-old Hall of Famer also indicated that his grandson inherited the spirit of his father, Coy Gibbs, who died in 2022.

"There's no secret here. We've gone through a tough time to start the year," Joe Gibbs said. "Everything that's happened to us, not much gone our way. When that happens, I know what I'm studying through all of that. That is who surrounds us, who is there with us, who is working their rear end off at the race shop to try and get us back. Those are the people that I just really, really appreciate. Anytime you go through a tough time, for me, that is something I really want to look at. Who are the guys there. We got some of those guys that are leading us out of this. ...

"But we're going to fight. Ty's dad, Coy, his statement was always anytime we got in a tough spot about his kids, he goes, 'I raised my kids tough.' That's what he said. Hopefully, we're going to fight our way out of this."