If you watch the NFL on a regular basis, you will notice that passing touchdowns have dramatically decreased during the past two seasons in favor of rushing touchdowns and field goals.
If you watch the NASCAR Cup Series on a regular basis, you will also experience a similar phenomenon: the biggest stars of the Gen 6 era are still the biggest stars of the Next Gen era, but the average finish of top drivers has spiraled off a cliff.
In 2019, 2020 and 2021 (the last three seasons of the Gen 6 car), there was at least one full-time driver who had an average finish better than ninth. There were at least two drivers that sported an average finish better than 10th, and in 2020 and 2021, there were at least 10 drivers with an average finish better than 14th.
Flash forward to the first three years of the Next Gen era, and it’s been a far different story. Not a single driver has finished a season with an average finish better than 11th since 2022, and most of the top drivers have posted an average finish between 12th and 14th.
Remember how there were 10 drivers that had an average finish better than 14th in both 2020 and 2021? Well, through the first 28 races of the 2024 Cup season, Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott are the only drivers that have an average finish better than 14th.
Even in 2022 and 2023, there were five and six drivers, respectively, that had an average finish better than 14th. The fact that only two drivers are above that mark with more than 75% of the 2024 season complete is nothing short of absurd.
Do you know who isn’t in this year’s top 10? Denny Hamlin. Despite scoring three wins and ranking second among drivers in laps led this season (917), Hamlin has posted an average finish of 15.6, which puts him well outside the mark this season. Also absent from this year’s top 10 is defending champion Ryan Blaney, who has two wins and eight top-five finishes, but also three last-place finishes and seven results of 29th or worse to net him an average of 16.1.
So what gives?
Well, the short answer is that the Next Gen has bridged the gap between what were previously the top teams and the mid-pack teams. The car’s debut season in 2022 tied 2001’s record of 19 different winners in a single season, and 2023 wasn’t too shabby itself with 15 unique winners. Here we are in 2024 with 16 winners through 28 races, epitomized by the most recent race at Watkins Glen International where the entire top five consisted of drivers without a win this year.
This organizational parity is clearly reflected in the win and top-five totals at season’s end.
The last three seasons of the Gen 6 car saw at least one driver win seven races. Kevin Harvick scored nine in 2020, while Kyle Larson earned 10 in 2021. Through two years of the Next Gen car, however, no one has been able to win more than six in one season; even in 2024, only one driver has recorded four wins (Larson) at this point of the year.
Furthermore, no driver has scored more than 15 top fives in a season with the Next Gen car. Conversely, there was at least one driver in 2019, 2020 and 2021 that scored at least 19 top fives, with two drivers accomplishing the feat in 2021.
Unlike years past, the best drivers and the fastest teams are more prone to days where they simply miss the setup and record finishes in the teens or twenties. That drops average finish, and what also drops average finish is the inability to avoid crashes and bad luck.
Harvick had an average finish of 7.3 in 2020 and he completed all but three laps that season. Hamlin had an average finish of 8.4 in 2021 and he completed all but four laps that season. Both drivers were not just consistent but also dominant, as they each led more than 1,500 laps in their respective seasons.
For the three drivers that have combined to lead the most laps in 2024 (Larson, Hamlin and Christopher Bell), they’ve been anything but consistent. The trio has combined to lead 2,726 laps this season, and they’ve also combined for a staggering 20 finishes of 30th or worse.
Put all of this together, and the Next Gen era has seen average finishes that more closely resemble the ones seen in the early 2000s.
But what’s perplexing is that the early 2000s, while deep with elite teams and driver talent, had fields of 43 cars. Nowadays, the field is maxed out at 40 cars, and most races feature a field of 36 or 37. And yet, despite the subtraction of a half-dozen drivers from the grid, the best drivers in the Next Gen era are consistently putting up average finishes that are equal, if not worse, than the ones seen 20 years ago.
It’s the parity among top teams, the difficulty of perfecting the setup week in and week out and the greater difficulty to avoid DNFs that have led to the stark reversal average finish that has seemingly occurred overnight. And when the 2024 season has seen a record 12 overtime finishes, those will only serve to jumble up the finishing order even more than usual.
As long as the rules remain the same and this car remains the choice of the Cup field, the years where a driver could record a single-digit average finish or win 25% of the races look to be gone.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.