Joey Logano provided feedback about the NASCAR Cup Series’ Next Gen car after a two-day test session at ISM Raceway on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 9-10.
Most notably, Logano emphasized the driving challenges teams would face with the car.
“When the car gets loose with this Next Gen car, it doesn’t come back until the driver steers the car back — it doesn’t fix itself,” Logano said in a release. “And that puts it more in the drivers’ hands. And I like that piece. It’s going to be challenging, but I think you’ll see more mistakes on the racetrack, which makes, in my opinion, better racing and more passing opportunities.
“The tire is completely different, and the body isn’t close to the same. So your natural reactions are wrong. And you have to be able to adapt quick when you feel something instead of trying to let the car fix itself.”
In an Instagram video, Logano further noted the vehicle’s body features.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/B55ZTcRAgfG/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Logano said the car has a “defuser in the back. All this is trying to do is create more downforce underneath the car, which would essentially, hopefully, put more air on the trailing car and create more passing.”
He also stated that it has a “bigger wheel, wider tire as well that will give a little bit more mechanical grip” and that it features larger brakes.
He tested with differently sized spoilers from big to small; the splitter is also raised up off the ground.
Logano noted some things about the engine: “The exhaust from the radiator comes up through the hood, some of the intake is gonna come through the front grill. [We’re] trying to come up with the best plan there to where we don’t have to run the engine so hot and be able to run the engine longer, things like that.”
The car is the same one that Austin Dillon tested at Richmond Raceway in October.
“We had a really good test at Richmond, and then said, ‘How can we make the car better?’ ” John Probst, NASCAR senior vice president of racing innovation, said. “We came up with 60-plus things we could do to the car. Not all of the things could be implemented into the car we have now, but some of them are in the design phase. We effectively updated a lot of the aerodynamics on the car.”
The best way to end the day ?? #NextGen #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/yP66xGqqOF
— Joey Logano (@joeylogano) December 11, 2019
The Next Gen car is set to debut in the 2021 season.
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She's currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.