NASCAR’s biggest motive for introducing the Next Gen car in 2022 was to bring more parity to the Cup Series. It aimed to level the playing field so that the little guy could stand up to the big ones. But a look at the points table after the first twelve races of the 2025 Cup Series season raises the question: how successful has this project really been?
Advertisement
One fan listed this season’s winners on X to highlight how often certain names repeat. Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson have won three races each. Denny Hamlin has two. The other winners — apart from Josh Berry — all belong to Hendrick Motorsports or Team Penske. “So much for parity,” one fan wrote in frustration. But are things really that bad?
Every sport has teams that are better than the rest. In NASCAR right now, those teams are Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Team Penske. No matter how much parity NASCAR tries to implement, results are never going to be evenly distributed. One team will always have an edge over another, and that naturally leads to dominant runs — like the ones we’ve seen this year.
A comment remembered the same and wrote back, “That’s still 7 winners in 12 races, with 24 to go. I hate this car too, but that’s still decent parity. No matter what car they’re driving, there will be teams who can bag multiple wins.” Those seven winners are spread across four teams — an ideal situation, some would argue.
Here’s your Indycar winners 5 races in.
We do not have it bad pic.twitter.com/N1FRs5hSnC
— Slice of Anime (@TheSliceofAnime) May 12, 2025
One fan looked over the wall at the state of the IndyCar Series to draw support from. The open-wheel racing series has two winners in the first five races of the season, with Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing winning four events. “We do not have it bad,” the fan noted. Another said, “7 winners in 12 races across 4 different teams. It’s true some fans will never be satisfied.”
The reality of racing was captured perfectly in a comment that said, “Cream rises to the top. It’s always going to happen in motorsports. Unless you want NASCAR to put their thumb on the scale or worse, build and hand out cars like IROC, it’s the reality.”
So, it’s fair to say the Next Gen car has fulfilled its purpose to an extent, despite the criticism. NASCAR could try to force more parity onto the field — but that would likely do more harm than good.
