The introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022 changed the NASCAR Cup Series in many ways. The times when a driver won nine or ten races a season were left in the dust. Parity was the new normal, and everyone, including Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, was forced to adapt to the new order. Racing in the fourth year of this era, how have the drivers fared so far?
Advertisement
Larson and Elliott both struggled to adapt to the car initially. Larson won just three races in 2022 after winning ten and the championship in 2021. Elliott, on the other hand, won five races in 2022. Despite one-upping his teammate, Elliott wasn’t convinced with his results. He told the press after his victory in Nashville that it was the result of an “educated guess.”
His doubts became more pronounced in 2023 as he failed to win a single race. However, in his defense, he had to sit out of seven races following a snowboarding injury. Larson, meanwhile, won four races and finished second in the driver standings.
He said of the year, “I feel like we learned a lot in that first season and 2023 we were really strong, really fast … crashed a lot, but ran up front a lot too.”
The two drivers got a proper shot at breaking the Next Gen car in 2024. Larson was able to clean up his mistakes in the previous years, and Elliott was able to reach victory lane again after a long break. Larson ended up winning six races, and Elliott won a single race at the Texas Motor Speedway.
Larson’s highly optimistic belief about himself
It is rather easy to see that the Next Gen car has hurdled the speed with which drivers were collecting wins. This was exactly the purpose of introducing it. Larson collected his 14th win of the new era on Sunday at Homestead-Miami. It was the 30th win of his career, and he is only the 30th driver to reach this milestone.
His words in the winner’s press conference still ring across the walls of Homestead. He went, “I think if we would still have the 2021 car, I would have about 50 Cup wins right now. I think switching to this car has limited us from winning.” That’s quite the confidence statement. But considering his form in 2021, not many arguments can be made against him.
Quite evidently, Larson has been far better in the Next Gen era than Elliott. But the No. 9 driver has been hard at work trying to unlock the key to winning races with the new machinery. Kyle Busch revealed in an interview with Kevin Harvick recently that they’ve both been having long conversations about the Next Gen car.
It remains to be seen if such discussions and the experience that he gains each weekend will make a championship winner in these new times.
