NASCAR: Could certain drivers have a subtle advantage in 2022?

Will the introduction of the Next Gen car for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season result in a slight advantage for the inexperienced drivers?

We are now just one NASCAR Cup Series race away from the introduction of the Next Gen car in the 2022 season, with that one race being this Sunday afternoon’s 2021 season finale at Phoenix Raceway.

After that, a new era of top-level stock car racing will begin with the Clash exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

That race is scheduled to take place the week between the AFC/NFC Championship Games and Super Bowl LVI — and two weeks before the official 2022 Cup Series season opener, the 64th annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

The hype for the Next Gen car has been real throughout the 2021 season, and several drivers will tell you that remaining focused on the task at hand — running well in 2021 — has been a challenge amid all of the build-up for next year.

One of those drivers is Stewart-Haas Racing rookie Chase Briscoe.

Briscoe, who clinched Rookie of the Year honors several races ago, recently spoke with Beyond the Flag and discussed how challenging that balance has been.

“It’s a hard balance,” Briscoe admitted. “For the driver’s side, I think it’s a little easier because for us, we’re just going out there and worried about that weekend. For the team guys and everybody at the shop, it’s a really hard balance of how much effort do you put into this car when, after the end of the season, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t even matter anymore.”

This has caused a significant amount of give and take throughout the garage, but the amount of each has differed for every team.

“You want to finish out the season strong, but you don’t want to put all your resources into this car and your time and energy when the new car is the future,” he continued. “And you have to figure out who is going to kind of hit the ground running with this new car. So it is a hard balance.”

Stewart-Haas Racing have had one of their worst seasons ever, placing just one of their four drivers in the playoffs and failing to get that lone driver, Kevin Harvick, past the round of 12. But this year’s struggle may end up paying off next year.

“For us as a company at Stewart-Haas, it was a down year,” Briscoe said. “So I would say we have put more eggs in the basket on the new car than some teams, and hopefully that will pay dividends once the season starts in February.”

Briscoe himself has tested the new car once so far, with that test having taken place at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval after the round of 12 finale at the track in October. He plans to test the car on the oval layout at the same venue shortly after the 2021 season ends.

“I got to drive it, I want to say three weeks ago here at the Roval here in Charlotte,” he said. “It’s definitely different. I think it will be a really good road course car. The ovals, I haven’t been able to drive one yet, but I think we do it in two weeks here at Charlotte as well.

“I’m excited; I’m kind of nervous at the same time. It’s going to totally be different than anything we’ve driven in the past. There’s going to be a big learning curve to kind of figure out. But at the same time, it’s exciting, because with me being one of the more inexperienced guys out there in the Cup Series, it will be nice to kind of have a clean slate with everybody and just try to figure out who can be the fastest and figure it out quickly.”

Briscoe believes that limited time in the current car could play to his advantage — and to the advantage of some of the other talented but inexperienced drivers in the field.

But he will not disrespect the fact that the many years experience of some of the series veterans will still be paramount and allow them to adapt to the new car quite quickly as well.

“I think a little bit [of an advantage],” he said. “All these guys are so good that they’re gonna all figure it out in about the same timetable, I feel like. I might not have as many habits, I guess, as some of the other guys that have run this car for 15, 20 years.

“But at the same time, the 15, 20 years they’ve run, they’ve run so many miles at these race tracks and so many laps that I almost think that’s invaluable. I don’t know; I think there’s a plus side to it, but there’s also negatives. To not having those habits, I guess, but at the same time, it’d be nice to have that kind of seat time and experience.”

Another situation of “give and take”.

While Briscoe did not make the playoffs in his rookie season and has yet to secure a top five finish (top finishes of sixth place at Circuit of the Americas and Road America), he still feels that this year of competition has been quite rewarding.

“I think just the Cup Series is definitely challenging,” he said. “It’s the top of the top, and everybody is extremely good, so it’s hard to have those good days. Whenever you do have a good day and run up front, it’s been super rewarding.

“I’d say we’ve had six to seven really good runs, and whenever you leave the race track that day, it’s just such a great feeling knowing that you’ve run with the best and you’ve shown that you can do it. So I would say that’s probably been the most rewarding, is just those six, seven weekends we’ve had that we’ve had a really good car and really good speed and been able to capitalize on it.”

It was truly a learning experience for the 26-year-old Mitchell, Indiana native, and it is one that he believes will prove quite valuable moving forward — even with the cars set to change for next year.

“I think just learning how important it is to do everything right in the Cup Series, from pit stops to restarts to just execution…you have to do everything perfectly; you can’t really make any mistakes to capitalize on a day,” he explained.

“I think that’s probably been the biggest thing, just learning what it takes to be there at the end of 500, 400 miles. And then just doing all those little things right has definitely been something that in the lower series, you can kind of get away with making a mistake or two. In the Cup Series, you just have to be perfect all day long in every aspect. So that’s probably been the biggest thing I’ve had to learn this year.

“There are times you’re almost better off giving up a little bit maybe on pit road to not get a speeding penalty, because if you get that speeding penalty, you’re kind of done for the day. It’s so hard to kind of recover from that. So you just have to know your situation throughout the race, and there’s just a lot going on throughout the race compared to some of the lower series.”