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Toyota exec explains how Gibbs-Hendrick deal at Daytona took trust

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Nate Ryan and Jeff Burton discuss the agreement between Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing that shook up the Daytona 500 and brought down Ford.

The alliance between Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing in the 2019 Daytona 500 was essentially a handshake deal, but the details were much more complex.

“The thing is with this strategy is it’s not just saying, ‘Do you want to work together? OK, great,’ ” Toyota Racing Development president David Wilson said Thursday on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. “You have to sit down with crew chiefs in one room looking each other in the eye, plotting a definitive strategy of what you’re doing with pit stops because it’s about coming in and leaving together.

“It’s more than just shaking hands and saying, ‘OK, we’ll work together.’ The credit goes to crew chiefs, spotters and the level of trust and unselfishness it takes from the drivers. These guys aren’t programmed in this manner.”

During an interview with co-hosts Danielle Trotta and Larry McReynolds, Wilson shed some more light on the unusual partnership between the Chevrolet and Toyota teams, which came to light through in-race scanner chatter and winner Denny Hamlin’s postrace comments to NBCSports.com’s Dustin Long.

The strategy was most evident during the second stage when a fleet of six cars – three Hendrick Camaros and three Gibbs Camrys – got off sequence and ran much faster that the field (putting some good cars a lap down).

“When you saw that pack about to lap the entire field, how do five to six cars go three 10ths (of a second) faster? It was because they weren’t racing each other at the time,” Wilson said.

“To be clear, we also agreed that with 10 (laps) to go, it’s every man for himself. In the end each driver was working toward winning that race, not pushing one of their competitors to the win. But awful proud of the innovation and creativity deployed that particular Sunday.”

The impetus for the Gibbs-Hendrick deal was Ford sweeping the top three spots in both qualifying races last Thursday.

“I have to admit that it wasn’t something we’ve been plotting for weeks,” Wilson said. “It really came together a couple of days before the race. Looking at how we fared in the Clash and Duels, we knew we had fast cars, drivers happy with power, but we knew when it came down to it, we needed numbers.

“We could do it with our five Toyotas. The problem is if one or two drop out, you don’t have enough. It was in that moment after the Duels where we looked at what else can we do. We approached one of our competitors.”