- Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. argue NASCAR is starting to resemble Formula 1 races.
- They argue car performance now outweighs driver skill in determining success.
- NASCAR is losing its core.
On one side, in last week’s episode of Actions Detrimental, Denny Hamlin argued that the parity brought in by the Next Gen car is exposing drivers.
The point he drove home is simple: in the past, teams built their own cars and chased gains through parts that gave them an edge. Bigger outfits could stack the deck and control races.
Now, a single-source supply chain has levelled the field, with teams buying parts from approved vendors. The result is a pack running nose-to-tail, with speed and cost brought into line.
In Hamlin’s view, when the cars run this close, the limelight swings to the person behind the wheel. There is no place to hide behind set-up calls or lean on a car to bail them out. If the pace is not there, the finger points at the driver.
But Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are not reading from the same book.
Busch points out that Next Gen cars have taken away the importance of drivers
The duo addressed how the philosophy of the competition is shifting at this point. Busch argued there was a time when a driver could take a car that was not the best and drag it to the front.
The car might have been good enough for eighth, but with skill, aggression, and race craft, it could be turned into a win. The driver could override the equipment and bend the race to his will.
He said, “To me, I feel like NASCAR has gotten a little bit more F1-ish. Got it. It’s all in the horse you ride. Yeah. Right? It’s all in the horse you ride. I hate that for NASCAR.”
Now, “If you’re a 20th place car, you are finishing 20th to 22nd. Wow. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it’s crazy,” he added.
That gap has vanished. It is because the field is so tight and so tuned that there is no room to punch above one’s weight. The ceiling and the floor are locked in, leaving little wiggle room to steal a march on the field.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. echoed that line of thought.
Earnhardt Jr. sees NASCAR drifting toward an F1 model
Earnhardt Jr. also believes NASCAR is moving toward a model where the link between car and result carries more weight than a driver’s racing skills.
He pointed at organisations, saying performance now rides on which team a driver belongs to. If the organisation shows up with speed, they are in the fight. If it does not, the writing is on the wall before the drivers even fire the engine.
As he put it, “It’s more and more into F1 style where it’s like this organization has the speed, right? Yeah. And so, if you’re in an organization that’s struggling, you show up, and you feel like chances are you’re not going to have seen a ton of progress in the last five days.”
“You’re going to show up to the racetrack and struggle. And if you’re a 15th place car, you’re going to be a 15th place car most weekends. Yeah.”
In Formula 1, it is taken as a given that the car and the team shape a driver’s fate to a large extent. Drivers matter, but they operate within set windows. A midfield car stays midfield while a front-running car excels.
NASCAR was not meant to follow that path. The identity of the sport was built on the idea that a driver could wrestle a tough car, manage tires, outthink rivals, and pull a rabbit out of the hat when it mattered.
That is the crux of what Busch and Dale Jr. laid out. The Next Gen car has taken away that identity. The cars run so close and rely so much on setup and team strength that the driver’s ability to make something out of nothing has taken a back seat. The end result is a shift in how races play out.
