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Joe Gibbs 'very disappointed' with winless start to NASCAR season

Joe Gibbs says he is "very disappointed" with the way his winless NASCAR squad has started the 2017 Cup Series

Between Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas won 12 races last year, with Busch and Edwards making the final four of the Chase.

Edwards then stunned NASCAR by retiring in January, replaced by Xfinity Series champion Daniel Suarez, but the Gibbs outfit is yet to record a victory with seven races complete.

Busch has claimed two top-five finishes, including second at Martinsville, and is its top driver in the standings in seventh, while Kenseth has one and Suarez and Hamlin have none between them.

"We're very disappointed in the start to the season," Gibbs said. "We need to get going.

"I think what this emphasises is how hard our sport is.

"If you think about us last year, we had really an unbelievable year, and yet here we are after seven races and everybody's kind of going, 'Hey, what's the deal?'

"Other people are always working hard. Several other teams have gotten hot. This is hard stuff."

While Joe Gibbs Racing is yet to get on the board, its chassis and engine has won this year with Martin Truex Jr at Las Vegas, through a technical alliance with Furniture Row Racing.

"We've spent probably the last three weeks doing a serious study and there's probably about five things or areas that we picked out where we can make an improvement," Gibbs said.

"You have different situations at different tracks. I think Kyle has had the opportunity to win a couple times but things didn't go our way.

"But I definitely feel like we're off and particularly I feel like we're off on intermediate tracks [between short ovals and superspeedways]. We've got everybody on board trying to correct the problem.

"I'm glad [Furniture Row] is in our programme. You look over there and see that car is running good and it gets you some confidence

"If it was just our four cars, we'd probably be looking at this very differently.

"I think the fact they have shown they are very strong, particularly at intermediate stuff, I think that's a plus and a help for us."

KENSETH: WE HAVEN'T RUN WELL

Kenseth is 22nd in the points in what he so far calls a "hit or miss season", having failed to finish three races due to accidents.

However, the 2003 champion feels his crew still has something to find, having not led a lap despite finishing third at Atlanta.

"If there's something to hit, I've hit it," he surmised. "Looking at just [my team], I think we've been off. We haven't run real well.

"We ran good at Atlanta but the rest of the races, we really haven't run very well.

"Some things are circumstances, but if we get running better, that cures a lot of your problems."

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