Martin Truex Jr. elaborates on how he and his team 'just need a solid day' to qualify into the NASCAR Playoffs Round of 8

Martin Truex Jr. feels all that he needs to do in his next race is put together a solid day to get through to the NASCAR playoffs Round of 8.

The driver has had an eventful season as he has picked up three wins this season. It has been turbulent off the track as well with former partner Sherry Pollex losing her life to cancer a few months back.

The driver, however, is currently sixth in the championship standings and is hoping for a solid day at work to make it through to the NASCAR playoff Round of 8.

Talking about his prospects, Martin Truex Jr. touched on the impact of the new generations of cars introduced last year. The new cars have more standardized parts which has closed the field a lot more. Because of this, the focus is entirely on improving the operational efficiency of these cars more than anything else.

As quoted by Jayski, Martin Truex Jr. emphasized the characteristics of the NextGen car and its impact and said:

“Ever since we went to the NextGen car, everything has been closer and it makes it challenging, for sure. It’s harder to find an advantage. It’s harder to run at the front every week, consistently."

He added:

“Everything is tighter, closer together, less room for error—and you really have to be on top of things. The points situation is the same as every other race. It’s really, really hard to be at the front all of the time, and this weekend, we just need a solid day to hopefully, get us through with some good tracks for us coming up.”

Martin Truex Jr. trails two of his teammates in the championship

At the moment, Martin Truex. Jr. trails two of his Gibbs racing teammates in the championship. Both Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell are ahead of him, with Ty Gibbs behind him. Hamlin is second in the championship right now while Bell is in third.

Gibbs is currently 19th in the championship behind Martin who is in sixth. This season Martin has had a fair amount of success. He has won three races and has also been in the top 3 on 5 other occasions.

Hamlin has also picked up three wins and seven top 3 results while Bell has only one win to his name and three top 3 results this year.