NASCAR’s Manufacturer War Has Moved Beyond The Garage

The Next Gen Shift

Keselowski believes the answer dates back to NASCAR’s introduction of the Next Gen car.

“The engineering was handed—or taken—from the teams based on rules and procedures and given to the OEMs,” Keselowski said.

According to the 2012 Cup Series champion, that shift has fundamentally changed how races and championships are won. The days when an independent organization could simply out-engineer the sport’s powerhouses have largely disappeared. Instead, success increasingly depends on how effectively a manufacturer coordinates the technical resources spread across its affiliated teams.

“A lot of these races are won way before we ever get to the racetrack,” Keselowski said. “They’re won in boardrooms with elite decision-making from team owners and now, in a lot of cases, with the OEMs.”

Keselowski traced that evolution back to NASCAR’s efforts to control costs entering the Next Gen era. While the standardized platform succeeded in reducing many of the expensive development wars that once consumed the garage, he believes it also shifted more responsibility for engineering and technical direction to the manufacturers themselves.

One unintended consequence, Keselowski argued, was making it far more difficult for independent organizations to replicate what Furniture Row Racing accomplished when it won the 2017 championship.

“I think those rules were targeted exactly at Furniture Row,” Keselowski said. “The unintended consequences… is you created this stalemate of organizations.”

Why Keselowski Thinks Toyota Has The Advantage

In Keselowski’s view, Toyota recognized that reality faster than its rivals.

Rather than relying on a single flagship organization, he said Toyota has fostered collaboration between its premier teams, creating what he described as “two A organizations” instead of the traditional model of one dominant team supported by several secondary operations. The result is a larger pool of engineering talent, simulation data and technical resources working toward the same goal.

“Toyota is making them pay for that with results on the racetrack,” Keselowski said. “They deserve credit for that. It’s a really great behind-the-scenes move that they’ve taken full advantage of.”

“If you’re going to beat Toyota, you have to have at least two elite organizations collaborating at very, very high levels…”

Keselowski contrasted that with Ford, where he believes organizations such as RFK Racing and Team Penske have yet to reach the same level of collaboration.

“If you’re going to beat Toyota, you have to have at least two elite organizations collaborating at very, very high levels,” he said. “At this point, I only see Toyota doing that.”

It’s an intriguing assessment because it shifts the conversation away from drivers and crew chiefs and toward something fans rarely see. Championships, Keselowski suggests, are increasingly shaped by organizational strategy rather than simply race-day execution.

Hamlin Sees A Business Decision, Not A Manufacturer Advantage

Not everyone inside Toyota sees it quite that way.

While Keselowski views Toyota’s dominance as evidence of a manufacturer orchestrating collaboration more effectively than its rivals, longtime Toyota driver Denny Hamlin believes the competitive advantage comes less from the manufacturer itself and more from smart business decisions made by the teams.

Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI Racing while continuing to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing, pushed back on the notion that Toyota provides dramatically different support than Ford or Chevrolet.

“Toyota is not that much different than any of the other manufacturers,” Hamlin said.

Instead, Hamlin points to the long-standing alliance between Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing. The partnership allows both organizations to share engineering resources and information while avoiding the cost of duplicating work.

“We chose to be affiliated with Joe Gibbs Racing because we felt like it would shorten the learning curve and get us competitive quicker,” Hamlin said. “It’s a relationship we still pay for, but the relationship definitely goes back and forth.”

Hamlin emphasized that the arrangement isn’t directed by Toyota.

“It’s not something that is forced by the manufacturers,” he said. “We just chose to have an alliance, and that’s what I felt like was the best business decision.”

From Hamlin’s perspective, the alliance benefits everyone involved. Joe Gibbs Racing receives financial compensation while both organizations gain access to a broader pool of engineering ideas generated by multiple drivers, crew chiefs and engineers.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt,” Hamlin said. “You’ve got a lot of good drivers amongst that group… a lot of smart engineers on both sides who bounce ideas off each other as well.”

Different Explanations, Same Result

Ironically, Keselowski and Hamlin may not be as far apart as they first appear.

Both agree collaboration has become one of the most valuable competitive assets in NASCAR’s Next Gen era. Where they differ is over who deserves the credit. Keselowski believes Toyota has created an environment that encourages elite collaboration across its top organizations. Hamlin believes successful teams simply made smart business decisions that any manufacturer could support.

Either way, the scoreboard is difficult to ignore. Toyota has turned that formula—whatever its origin—into 11 victories through the season’s first 18 races.

That’s a very different NASCAR than the one Keselowski entered nearly two decades ago, when engineering breakthroughs largely lived inside individual race shops. Today, the fastest car may still win on Sunday. But the foundation for that victory may have been laid months earlier, in a boardroom where nobody was wearing a firesuit.