NASCAR introduced the NextGen car in 2022, and it sounds like it’s still causing problems for the drivers.
During an appearance on the Actions Detrimental podcast last week, Denny Hamlin called out NASCAR for the NextGen cars as he expressed his frustration with the physics of the cars and how they make it difficult to pass.
“A good car is able to pass. Then they are able to manipulate the car in front of them instead of getting manipulated by the car in front of them,” Hamlin said according to On3. “That is the big difference between Xfinity and Cup, is that Cup, the closer you get to them, your car takes off. You lose all downforce. It’s done.
“The closer you get to the car in front of you in Xfinity … they start losing rear downforce, and then they get off the bottom and they shuck them.”
Hamlin expressed his frustration with the cars, explaining that NASCAR has a “physics problem” with the NexGen car.
“Now you can’t do that because they are not making any over-body aerodynamics, and it’s all under-body,” Hamlin said. “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. We got a physics problem. 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 gonna run.”
Clearly, Hamlin is not happy, and it’s unlikely he’s the only one.
