A statistical analysis of race-winner starting positions from 2020-23 shows that the Next Gen car makes starting near the front less important at tracks less than 1 mile, but more important at tracks between a mile and a mile-and-a-half.
Cup Series drivers say that passing is much harder in the Next Gen car. Yet NASCAR’s analysis of the 2022 Cup Series season found that:
- The 1,554 passes for the lead were the most since NASCAR started capturing passing data. That number includes passes around the entire track rather than just changes at the start-finish line.
- Nine 2022 races set records for green flag passing for the lead.
- Overall green flag passing increased by 6.36% relative to 2021.
These increases aren’t entirely attributed to the Next Gen car. For example, transforming Atlanta into a superspeedway caused lead changes to leap from the mid-20s to the mid-60s. The number of total green flag passes rose from about 3,000 per race to 6,436 at the very first race at the newly configured track.
Are drivers wrong about passing?
To try to determine if passing really is harder in the Next Gen car, I compared starting and finishing positions for Next Gen races with those from 2020-21, the last two seasons of the Gen-6 car. I did not include the Bristol dirt race or the Chicago street course because those are such unique situations.
I started by comparing the percentage of winners who started in the top five, in the top 10 and in the top 15. The larger the percentage of winners, the greater the advantage from starting in that part of the field.
| Years | Number of Races | % Won from Top 5 | % Won from Top 10 | % Won from Top 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 71 | 38.0 | 69.0 | 77.5 |
| 2022-2023 | 55 | 45.4 | 63.6 | 74.6 |
Given the number of races considered, differences must be larger than 6.2% to be meaningful. While the 7.4% difference in winners coming from the top five is significant, there’s no clear trend in the other starting positions.
But that’s not all there is to the story.
Track types matter
Pack racing and accidents jumble the field so much at superspeedways that qualifying has little to do with finishing position. But when I recalculated the numbers without the superspeedways, there was still almost no difference between the Gen-6 years and the Next Gen years.
The Next Gen car improved racing on intermediate tracks but has struggled on the shortest tracks. That suggested I break out the data by track type. I divide tracks into six categories:
- Super-short tracks are ovals less than 1 mile in length.
- Short tracks are between 1 and 1.49 miles long.
- Intermediate tracks are the 1.5-mile ovals.
- The inelegantly named ‘other’ tracks are ovals 2 miles and longer that aren’t superspeedways.
- Superspeedways include Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta for races in 2022 and later.
- Road courses are the non-ovals.
The ‘other’ category, superspeedways and road courses showed minimal differences between the Gen-6 and the Next Gen car. The other track types did show significant effects.
Because we’re dealing with smaller numbers of races in each category, the differences must be larger to be meaningful. Let’s go from shortest to longest tracks.
Over the last two years of the Gen-6 car, half of the races at super-short tracks were won from top-five starting positions. Since switching to the Next Gen car, only 12.5% of wins have come from the top five.
| Years | Number of Races | % Won from Top 5 | % Won from Top 10 | % Won from Top 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 10 | 50.0 | 80.0 | 90.0 |
| 2022-2023 | 8 | 12.5 | 25.0 | 50.0 |
A difference in favor of the Gen-6 car continues for winners starting from the top 10 and top 15. Drivers starting from the top 15 have won half the Next Gen races at these tracks. In contrast, 90.0% of the races were won from the top 15 in 2020-2021.
In other words, it is less important to qualify in the front now than it was in the last two years of the Next Gen car at oval tracks less than 1 mile in length.
But the opposite is true for larger tracks. On ovals between 1 mile and 1.49 miles, 71.4% of Next Gen races were won from the top five. Drivers starting in the top five positions only won 53.3% of the earlier races.
| Years | Number of Races | % Won from Top 5 | % Won from Top 10 | % Won from Top 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 15 | 53.3 | 66.7 | 73.3 |
| 2022-2023 | 14 | 71.4 | 85.7 | 92.9 |
All but one race at this track type was won from the top 15 in the Next Gen era, whereas a little less than three-quarters of the races were won using the Gen-6 car. Qualifying position is more important at these tracks than it used to be.
Intermediate tracks exhibit the same trends, but to a lesser degree. There is less data from the 2022-23 years than earlier years due to a combination of fewer intermediate tracks on the schedule and their over-representation in the playoffs relative to the regular season.
| Years | Number of Races | % Won from Top 5 | % Won from Top 10 | % Won from Top 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 20 | 35.0 | 80.0 | 80.0 |
| 2022-2023 | 10 | 60.0 | 90.0 | 100.0 |
No intermediate tracks have been won by drivers starting outside the top 15 in the Next Gen car.
What does it mean?
The data are interesting, surprising and too preliminary to make any definite judgements about the Next Gen car and passing. It’s possible that passing issues force winners at the shortest tracks to rely on strategy and execution rather than speed. Last weekend’s race at Richmond exemplified this.
The current rules package for the Next Gen car will not change before the playoffs starts. Six of the 10 playoff races are at tracks between 1 and 1.5 miles, with two at tracks under a mile in length.
In view of these results, the take-home message for crew chiefs and drivers is to emphasize qualifying at the short and intermediate tracks and put extra effort into strategy and execution at Bristol and Martinsville.
