NASCAR’s introduction of Next Gen cars in the Cup Series has not only hugely changed vehicle dynamics but also intensified existing debates over the performance of the cars that now struggle to run in dirty air and overtake. Among the more vocal critics is driver Denny Hamlin, who has recently opened up about substantial flaws he perceives in the design and functionality of these new race cars.
Hamlin specifically points to a major disadvantage that becomes apparent when these cars are in traffic, going as far as to label it the worst scenario in NASCAR’s history for such conditions. He admitted on the Actions Detrimental Podcast:
“We’re in such a weird spot where the leader has such an advantage on that track because he’s got the clean air. You can run so much faster when you have the clean air. And we all know these Next Gen cars are terrible in traffic. They’re the worst cars in NASCAR in traffic.”
The criticism doesn’t stop there. The Florida driver has repeatedly raised concerns directly with NASCAR officials, including John Probst, about the cars’ viability well before their official rollout.
“I asked them three times… three times I asked John Probst before this car came out!
“‘Are you sure it’s right? Because you haven’t put it around any other cars during these preseason testings.’ Then finally in December before they launched the car they put it on track with another car and they see that it’s, ‘Oh s**t, we’ve got a problem.’ Well no kidding. You had two years to figure this out. God, it’s frustrating as hell!
“The race was at least compelling because of the strategies, right? It certainly was compelling, and when I watched it back it was like, ‘OK.’ And I kind of warned the folks listening in on this last week that, ‘Prepare, strap up your boots because this is what you’re going to see this weekend. You’re going to have to just embrace the strategy part of it.’”
The Next Gen cars have also significantly affected race strategy, shifting the focus toward mastering fuel and tire management, as tire durability now outlasts fuel capacity, creating race conditions that fans simply aren’t fans of.
“The reason we also had these fuel mileage races is because tires are outlasting the gas tank. The gas tank, the tires need to go out before the gas tank does,” noted Hamlin. “I mean really, you could have, I don’t know how many laps you could run on said tires, but my guess it would be a ton, a ton of laps. It was all about track positioning. Track position, track position. And while there were passes from the 5 car (of Kyle Larson) in Stage 3 to the end, he was racing against everyone running half-throttle. So it just, it’s not as it seems. Had everyone been running all out, passing was just not good. Not good at all.”
Interestingly, Hamlin contrasts the Cup Series racing experience to that of the Xfinity Series, where the cars allow for more aggressive and effective passing.
“This is what it is. It’s never put on a great race, but you then watch the Xfinity race and it’s like they’re able to pass. If a good car is able to pass, then they’re able to manipulate the car in front of them instead of getting manipulated by the car in front of them.
“That is the big difference in Xfinity and Cup, is that Cup, the closer you get to them, your car takes off. You lose all down-force, it’s done. The closer you get to the car in front of you in Xfinity, and what we saw Riley Herbst and many others do, is that as soon as you get close to the rear of the car, they start losing rear down-force and then they get off the bottom and you shuck them.
“That’s what we used to do with the Gen 4 car and 5 car, is that we could always get the guy in front of us loose. Now you can’t do that because they’re not making any over-body aerodynamics and it’s all under-body. So you’re not able to take air off their spoiler because there’s not hardly any air going on the spoiler in the first place. So we’ve got a physics problem.”
These insights from a veteran driver highlight profound challenges with the Next Gen cars, but there’s something that can be done to at least remedy the issue. Hamlin himself has advocated for more autonomy in car setups to tailor vehicles more precisely to specific track conditions:
“I wish they would just let us come up with our own package for that track just one time and let us decide what we’re going to run. But we’re just, we’ve been in this zone for a while now where we either need to slow way down more or we need to speed up to allow handling to really matter.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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