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Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin merely need to stay out of trouble on Sunday at Martinsville, and Joey Logano understands that winning is almost certainly his only way into NASCAR’s Championship 4.

Barring a Logano victory, that potentially leaves the drivers of two Toyotas and the two other Fords battling for one spot in Phoenix on Nov. 7. All and all, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. must be feeling a whole lot better than Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney at the moment.

Yes, it’s been that frustrating a season for just about everyone associated with Ford. Sure, winning in Phoenix would make things better. Right now, though, a whole bunch of Ford teams cannot wait for the Next Gen car to roll into their garages to put 2021 behind them.

Setting the stage for the final NASCAR Cup Series elimination race

Kyle Larson has won the first two races of the third NASCAR Cup Series playoffs segment, advancing him to the Championship 4.  Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports calculates that Chase Elliott can finish 15th in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy and advance even if he doesn’t earn any stage points. Similarly, Denny Hamlin, leading the fleet of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas, can finish 12th and advance without any stage points.

So, assuming an uneventful 500 laps and 263 miles, which is undoubtedly a bad assumption at Martinsville, five drivers will be fighting for one spot in the Championship 4.

At 26 points below the cutline, winning at Martinsville seems to be Joey Logano’s only hope to contend for the championship in Phoenix.

At one and six points, respectively, below the cutline, Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski are in better shape in the other two Team Penske Fords. Rounding out the field is JGR’s Martin Truex Jr. at three points below the cutline and Kyle Busch at one point above it.

Thus, Bush, Blaney, Truex, and Keselowski will be staging a race within a race.

It’s been a disappointing season for the Ford teams

Ford logo on a car sold Sept. 10,, 2021. | Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto via Getty Images

With the exception of Team Penske, 2021 has been a forgettable year for the drivers manning Fords. And even the Penske garage will probably happily settle for advancing one car to the Championship 4 after both Keselowski and Joey Logano qualified a year ago.

Consider how downtrodden the other major multi-car teams must feel by comparison.

At Stewart-Haas Racing, Kevin Harvick has gone from nine victories to none this year. Aric Almirola’s win at New Hampshire is SHR’s only triumph thus far, and that came after no Ford from any team reached victory lane over a stretch of 12 races. Almost as disappointingly, Cole Custer went from a win and 16th place in points as a rookie to two top-10 finishes and 27th place in 2021.

Over at Roush Fenway Racing, Ryan Newman has been a shadow of himself since last year’s horrifying Daytona 500 wreck, and Chris Buescher is wrapping up another nondescript season.

The 2022 NASCAR Cup season will be a fresh start for Ford

Team Penske drivers Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski,wait for the start of the NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 on July 11, 2021 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia. | David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Ford employed a “Quality is Job 1” marketing campaign for its consumer division long ago, but disgruntled customers launched a “Quality is Job 1.01” parody. Improving its NASCAR standing when the Next Gen cars roll out is the new Job 1, and there will be plenty of updates in the first months. But at least Ford should be on equal footing with Toyota and Chevy … at least until one of the three makes the first big Next Gen breakthrough.

Not that it means much because the team has been the Baltimore Orioles of NASCAR, but Rick Ware Racing is moving over to full-time affiliation with Ford, enlisting Roush Yates as its engines shop, and forging an alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing. More Fords should translate to a quicker learning curve across all teams.

Penske is Penske, which is to say that the outfit will plug Austin Cindric in for Brad Keselowski and not worry about surrendering too much ground. Meanwhile, Keselowski is one of Ford’s best hopes for a rebound. He will have skin in the game at Roush Fenway Racing in 2022 as a minority owner, and the thought is that he can inject energy and expertise into beefing up their performance.

Whatever the case, though, Ford is almost certainly eager to close the books on 2021.

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Staff Writer, Producer - Motorsports

John Moriello

John Moriello started covering sports in 1982, began digital publishing in 1995, and joined Sportscasting in 2020. A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR.

Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls.

John is a member of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), the President of the New York State Sportswriters Association, and a two-time Best of Gannett winner for print and online collaborations whose work has appeared on FoxSports.com and MaxPreps.com.