Chevy 6, Toyota 4 and Ford 0. That’s the box score after the first 10 races of the 2024 season. So how worried should Ford be about having zero wins in 10 races?
Previous Seasons with Zero Wins after 10 Races
This isn’t the first time Ford has been in this situation. The last time they started a season with zero wins in the first 10 races was 2010, when Chevy won six of the first ten races, Toyota three and Dodge one.
Ford didn’t win their first race of the season until the second Pocono race of the year — the 21st race of the season. Greg Biffle, nominated yesterday as a contender for the Hall of Fame, broke Ford’s losing streak.
The manufacturer went on to win a total of four races that year with two wins by Biffle and two by Carl Edwards. Chevy’s Jimmie Johnson won the championship.
Ford hadn’t been in that situation since 1983, 27 years earlier.
Manufacturers Do Come Back From Bad Starts
In 2017, Toyota went from winning just one of the first 10 races to winning 44.4% of the season’s races. The graph below shows each manufacturer’s win percentage as of the first 10 races on the left and the same parameter on the right.
Toyota teams won 15 races that year. Martin Truex Jr. won the championship and four of the 10 playoff races. It’s the most races won from race 11 to race 36 since 1980, when Chevy also won 15 races over that span. Of course, Chevy also won seven of the first 10 races that year.
How Good is Ford at Coming Back?
The graph below shows Ford’s change in percentage wins from the 10th race to the 36th race since 2013. Historically, Fords have been pretty constant over the season or fallen behind.
Fords held their own against the other manufacturers or got better. The 2016 and 2018 seasons were marginal improvement from winning 20% of the first 10 races in 2016 and five of the first 10 races in 2018. Joey Logano won his first championship in 2018.
But even years with a slight falloff weren’t bad for the make: Kevin Harvick took the ultimate prize in 2014, but Ford started out with 40% of the wins in the first 10 races.
But here’s the most important piece of data: Ford has had a slow start for both of the Next Gen years and shown marked improvement over the season. They won only two of the first 10 races in 2022 and one of the first 10 races in 2023. They ended the season with nine wins in 2022 and eight in 2023.
More importantly, they won the championship both years.
This Year
Ford hasn’t run miserably this year. If all the manufacturers were performing equally, the percentages below would all be 33.3%
- Ford has 30% of the top-10 finishes. Chevy has 38% and Toyota 32%
- They have 24% of the top-5 finishes. (Chevy has 42% and Toyota 34%)
- Ford has 26.7% of the top-3 finishes. (Chevy has 40.0% and Toyota 33.3%)
If not for a bad block, a Ford might have won Talladega. Ryan Blaney lost Atlanta by 0.003 seconds. Had either of those wins happened, I wouldn’t be writing this. Granted, Ford has struggled more at non-superspeedway tracks, but the current status is no reason for Ford fans to give up quite yet.
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