John Probst, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing innovation has made it clear that they want the Next Gen car to be difficult to drive than the current one in use.
A lot of drivers have complained about different issues in the Next Gen that is set to be implemented in NASCAR from the coming season. One of the complaints is that the car is difficult to drive.
While it seems that NASAR is deliberately making the car difficult to drive. Speaking about the difficulty of driving the Next Gen car after the latest test at Charlotte Motor Speedway oval test, Probst said:
“Yes, certainly,” said John Probst, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing innovation. “We don’t want the cars to be easy to drive. We’ve always said we want the best drivers running up front.
“I think if you look at a lot of the changes that we’ve made to the car, a lot of the side-force that used to be in the car is gone so it’s not as forgiving as its been before.
“You saw some of that (Wednesday) morning.”
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In this specific test, Austin Dillon wrecked in Turns 1 and 2 and other cars including that of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson spun out of the track. Other drivers including Alex Bowman and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spoke about the difficulty of the car after the test.
Probst is expecting that drivers will learn to use the car better with time.
“I’m not saying those incidents were all car, but definitely the cars are a bit edgier,” Probst said. “I expect over time we’ll see through the set-ups that will get better.
“Certainly with the lack of side-force, that will be something (the drivers) will have to get used to with respect to how the car drives, how it recovers and if it’s loose, how far you can let it go before it slides.”