Ty Gibbs is currently racing in his third Cup Series season. The biggest worry the 22-year-old has now is that he hasn’t reached Victory Lane yet in the time he has been here. An opportunity presented itself to him on Sunday at Michigan but fate ruled otherwise and he had to settle for a frustrating third-place finish.
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Gibbs capitalized on cautions and raced his No. 54 Toyota Camry XSE to winning speeds in the final stage. But he could use only 70-80% of his throttle in the later moments of the race after being warned that he would run out of fuel if he kept pushing hard. The inability to be aggressive resulted in him giving up the win to his teammate Denny Hamlin without much of a fight.
Gibbs’ mother, Heather, spoke to the press in the aftermath and stood behind her son. She said, “There’s so much to learn. I mean, it’s so hard. Sundays are hard. I was talking to [Chris] Gabehart (JGR competition director) about that. It’s really hard, really hard to learn, and just so much to try to take in.” Notably, Heather is a co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing.
She was particularly proud of the fact that the youngster had been able to prove his mettle against the big guns like Hamlin and William Byron. Through the showing, Gibbs has shown that he can win races with his Camry. It is just a matter of execution from here on. Regardless of the positives that can be taken from Sunday, the driver was understandably frustrated.
Why Gibbs is frustrated despite his best result of the season
For a Joe Gibbs Racing driver to go this long without securing his maiden victory is an anomaly. Ty Gibbs would perhaps have been axed long ago if not for his surname. Awareness of this is probably what causes him to stress more about not having won a race yet.
“Yeah, it’s just unfortunate because I feel like we had the capability to go do it,” he said. “I feel like we showed we were fast enough to go do it. It’s definitely frustrating, but it’s just part of it sometimes.”
With the result, Gibbs is now 24th on the points table. 11 regular season races remain and a hike towards a playoff berth is on. The next challenge will be at Mexico City when Gibbs takes on the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez next Sunday.
