NASCAR’s changes to qualifying at non-superspeedway ovals are a significant improvement; however, a few additional tweaks would make the process more consistent.
A brief history of qualifying
For most of NASCAR history, qualifying was a staid — some would even say boring — process. One by one, each driver ran two qualifying laps. Drivers started the race in order of qualifying speed. When NASCAR limited field sizes, qualifying determined which cars were allowed to race.
In 2014, NASCAR adopted an F1-style ‘knockout’ qualifying. Drivers shared a single 15-minute session in which to post a qualifying lap. The fastest 24 cars moved to a second qualifying round, and the fastest 12 of those to a final round.
NASCAR had to continually adjust qualifying rules as teams found ways to game the system. The drivers finally outsmarted themselves at the 2019 Auto Club Speedway race when they waited so long for someone to make the first lap that no one posted a time in the last qualifying session. Two weeks later at Texas, NASCAR faced more criticism about group qualifying and vowed to make changes. NASCAR returned to single-car qualifying (except at road courses) at Dover.
COVID forced NASCAR to develop metrics to set starting positions fairly without qualifying. The last of NASCAR’s metrics — the performance metric score — carried over into the modified knockout system NASCAR adapted when qualifying resumed in 2022.
Recent qualifying schemes
NASCAR ranks all drivers by its Performance Metric Score, then assigns them alternately to ‘A’ or ‘B’ groups. After both groups have had 20 minutes of practice, Group A qualifies, followed by Group B. Within each group, drivers qualify from worst metric to best. The driver with the best score is always in group B so that they are the last qualifier in round 1.
The five cars with the fastest times in group A and the five cars with the fastest times in group B advance to a second qualifying round. The remaining drivers lined up according to their first-round qualifying times.
In theory, approximately half of the 10 fastest times in the first qualifying session would come from group A and the rest from group B. In practice, changes in air temperature, cloud cover, the amount of rubber built up on the track, and other factors often produce meaningful differences in track conditions between the two groups.
Fifty-four races in the 2022 and 2023 seasons had A/B qualifying. In more than half (29 out of the 54 or 53.7%), the ratio of drivers with the 10 fastest times were not even (meaning five drivers from each group.) In fact, most weren’t even four drivers from one group and six from the other. They were ratios of 3 to 7, 2 to 8 or 1 to 9.
In all but one race, the B group had more drivers in the 10 fastest times than the A group. The exception was the second Martinsville race in 2023, where the A group held eight of the top-10 times.
Example: 2023 Las Vegas I
Let’s consider an example to make this discussion more concrete. The graph below shows qualifying times for both rounds in last year’s Las Vegas spring race.
The first-round times of the A group drivers are shown as red left-pointing triangles and the first-round times of the B group are yellow right-pointing triangles. The stars show second-round qualifying times of those drivers who moved on. The preponderance of yellow triangles on the left side of the graph shows that the B group was overall faster than the A group.
Five drivers in the B group — Alex Bowman, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. — were faster than the slowest driver who qualified for the second round in the A group.
Taking the five fastest drivers in each group benefited the top of the A group. But consider Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Michael McDowell, and Chris Buescher, who were the sixth-, seventh- and eighth- best drivers in group A. They started the race 17th, 18th and 19th because their times were slower than the corresponding drivers in the B group. The ninth fastest driver in Group A, Daniel Suárez, started 24th.
The changes for 2024
This year, drivers who don’t make the second qualifying round will be lined up in order of their finish within their group rather than their qualifying time relative to all drivers. Those qualifying in the A group will line up on the outside row and the B group drivers on the inside row.
The diagram below compares the lineup for the 2023 spring Las Vegas race under 2023 and 2024 rules. Blue balls indicate drivers from group A and red balls those from group B. The number on each ball is the driver’s round 1 qualifying finish relative to drivers in their group.
Comparing the two lineups shows how the rules change compensates for differing track conditions. Instead of starting 24th, the 10th-highest-finishing A group driver would start in 20th place.
The B group drivers lose their advantage. The 10th-highest-finishing B-group driver started in 15th in 2023. This year, he would start in 19th. This change makes the starting grid fairer for the drivers.
At least, the drivers starting from the sixth row back.
One step beyond
NASCAR could go even further. Having two practice groups makes sense, especially at smaller tracks. However, there is rarely any correlation between the metric and how well a driver qualifies because that metric relies heavily on the results of the last race. The graphic below shows how the metric is calculated.
In our Las Vegas example, Suárez tied for the third-highest metric score but had the 10th fastest time in his first-round qualifying group. William Byron had the 24th best metric score and qualified second in his group. The metric score relevance is worse when the previous race was a superspeedway, and best when the previous track was similar in type to the track being raced this week.
So why not simplify qualifying even more? Order drivers by owner points and assign them alternately to groups A and B. Qualifying order could be determined by fastest practice lap so that the fastest drivers that day qualify under the more similar conditions.
Or NASCAR could qualify using a one-from-group-A/one-from-group-B pattern. That would require a slightly longer break between practice and qualifying to allow everyone equal chance to cool down engines and examine SMT data. But even that is a small price to pay for simplicity, fairness and perhaps even more drama for fans during qualifying.