Martin Truex Jr. Returning to Joe Gibbs Racing For 2024 NASCAR Cup Season

"I'm coming back."

With that simple three-word sentence as an announcement, Martin Truex Jr., the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion and current NASCAR Cup Series regular-season point leader, will officially return to Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2024 season.

Much like a season ago, there had been much speculation that Truex would end his racing career at the conclusion of the season. However, those rumors have been squashed officially.

Truex made the announcement during a media availability scrum at Michigan International Speedway following NASCAR Cup Series qualifying on Saturday.

The driver, who has three wins this season, says it just didn't feel right to walk away from Joe Gibbs Racing at this time.

"Got it out of the way, and it just didn't feel right to not come back and keep doing what we're doing," Truex stated. "Excited to get that out of the way, and continue to work on this year. And obviously excited for next year as well."

Truex says that while he deeply pondered retirement, at the end of the day, he kept telling himself what an opportunity he has behind the wheel at JGR, currently.

"It just felt like the right thing to do was to keep going. The more I thought about it, the more I was like, 'Okay, don't be stupid,' we'll go race another year and see how it goes," Truex explained.

Truex, 43, has bounced back in a big way in 2023 from a frustrating 2022 season, which saw him go winless for the first time since 2014.

In addition to his three race wins, Truex also has three Stage Wins this year and he has a solid 39-point advantage over his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin for the regular season championship, which comes with an additional prize of 15 Playoff Points.

Since the 2015 season, Truex has found himself inside the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 an incredible five times, and 2023 very well could mark the sixth if his current momentum carries through the Playoffs.

Truex is a 34-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner, and in addition to the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series championship, Truex also won back-to-back NASCAR Xfinity Series titles in 2004 and 2005.

The driver of the No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota will roll from the starting grid in the fifth position in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Photo Credit: Nigel Kinrade, LAT Images, Courtesy of Toyota Racing