Every race track on the Cup Series calendar presents new and different challenges to drivers. They all vary extremely in their nature and demand the cars to be adjusted to suit them perfectly. The only way for teams to know if they’ve put together a car good enough to handle a particular track is through the practice and qualifying sessions that precede the main race.
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This is what makes these short sessions a crucial one for drivers to understand and provide feedback on their cars. But even within those two, the men behind the wheels have different motives. Joe Gibbs Racing driver Aric Almirola explained in a recent video for the team’s media, “For practice, you still have to go out and attack. But you’re really a bit under the limit of the car.”
“Then you switch over to qualifying and it is in full attack mode. You’re at a 100% trying to get the absolute most out of it because every form of racing now track position is so important. There is a lot of commitment when you go out to qualify.” The only motive that drivers have during qualifying is to set the highest speed possible out of the machine they’ve been given.
The limited track time that they get before the main race presents a lot of challenges. And they’ve been more so since 2020 when NASCAR decided to reduce the practice times. The practice sessions for superspeedway races were further removed altogether. These transitions forced drivers to adopt other means to try and understand their cars and the track.
How do drivers cope with short practice sessions?
The lack of enough practice has put pressure on crews and drivers to be prepared from the moment they get to the track. They don’t have the cushion to take three or four laps to get up to speed. As far as preparing for a race goes, a driver can do two things. First, race on sims (simulators). Second, study data by watching races.
The defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney said about this back in May, “Everyone’s a little different. Some guys do SIM, and other guys watch races and look at data from last year. I’m more kind of a data guy than a SIM guy. But everyone’s a little different.”
The primary reason behind the shorter practice sessions, as claimed by NASCAR, is to reduce operating costs for teams. Paradoxically, sims cost just as much as actually practicing on the track. Team owners like Jimmie Johnson have been actively pitching for extended practice sessions in recent times.
