Denny Hamlin: NASCAR has a 'physics problem' with Next Gen cars making passing difficult

Denny Hamlin claimed NASCAR has a “physics problem” with the Next Gen cars, affecting driver’s ability to pass during races.

Getting down to the nitty gritty of the car, passing is important, obviously. But when the cars themselves make it much more difficult and don’t allow for creativity, or heck, drama in the race, Hamlin’s had it.

The problem is, it’s physics, as Hamlin put it.

“That is the big difference between XFINITY and Cup, is that Cup, the closer you get to them, your car takes off,” Hamlin said on Actions Detrimental. “You lose all downforce. It’s done. The closer you get to the car in front of you in XFINITY, and what we saw Riley Herbst and many others do is that as soon as you get close to the rear of the car, they start losing rear downforce, and then they get off the bottom and they shuck them. 

“And that’s what we used to do with the Gen 4 car and 5 car, is that we could always get the guy in front of us loose. Now you can’t do that because they are not making any over-body aerodynamics, and it’s all under body. So you’re not able to take air off their spoiler, because there’s not hardly any air going on the spoiler in the first place. We got a physics problem. I wish they would just let us come up with our own package for that track just one time, and let us decide what we’re gonna run.”

Denny Hamlin considers NASCAR’s ‘physics problem’

Hamlin, who’s one of the more accomplished drivers in the circuit at this rate, claims there’s some sort of physics issue in the sport. What does that mean moving forward?

Anyone’s guess

“Chris kept telling me, you know, it’s really, really close,” Hamlin said of in-race discussion. “We’re kind of right there. And so I don’t know, yes, certainly when I knew if he was going to have to ask me to pass anyone in that final stage. It was just not going to happen. It’s just physics. 

“I think Chase Elliott went off during the course of the race. He’s like, you know, if you can give me a physics button, you know, that’d be great, you know, because if you can figure out how to pass then it’ll be game on.”

So at this point, for Hamlin and everyone else, it’s a “race” to figure out science.