Doug Yates is as excited as anyone in the NASCAR industry for a new era with the Next Gen race car. Some of the reason might be because the president and CEO of Roush Yates Engines did not enjoy the 2021 season.

“I think last year was probably one of the more frustrating years I’ve ever had in racing,” Yates told The Racing Writer’s Podcast. “For a cost-containment method, they made us submit parts, so we had to submit our camshaft, our intake manifold, and our rocker arm design for the entire season. So those parts were frozen. And that was very frustrating for me because we like the ability to – what we call race – is to work on things.

“We race engines by continuing to advance the technology, to make improvements, to change parts… try to make more power. When they locked those things down that was very frustrating to me.”

Cost containment resulted from the sport shifting to the Next Gen race car. As the industry continued developing and testing the car, the series put a hold on teams being able to research and develop new parts and pieces to add to their cars as the season went on. Teams competed with what was already finished.

Ford drivers combined to win seven races last season, including a few of the biggest events on the schedule. Michael McDowell of Front Row Motorsports won the Daytona 500, and Joey Logano of Team Penske won the inaugural dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

But the Ford camp always seemed a step behind the competition and that’s because they were. Having been the dominant manufacturer in 2020 with the likes of Kevin Harvick winning nine races on his own, teams caught up and what worked for Ford in ’20 wasn’t enough in 2021.

A Ford driver was not represented in the Championship 4 and did not win in the playoffs.

“In 2020, we had an incredible season,” said Yates. “We went through COVID and shut down for eight or nine weeks, and when we started racing again, we won Darlington with Kevin Harvick. His 50th win when we came back. We won 18 Cup races in 2020. Awesome season for Ford Performance. And then they said, OK, well, let’s freeze those parts.

“Well, at the same time, what happens in racing is when one person is winning, the other person is pretty motivated to beat them, right? And so, while we were winning, ECR and Hendrick [Motorsports] pretty much leapfrogged us. When they locked those parts down, we were behind last year. So we didn’t win as many races.

“Then when people (questioned), is it the engine? Is it the car? Well, I can’t really change anything. It was tough. It was a tough year. Just like anything else, you want to do your job, you want to be rewarded for hard work, and that was a tough year.”

The full interview with Yates can be heard below: