The demand to increase the length of testing sessions before Cup Series races is becoming more and more widespread in the garage. The latest person to add his argument to the cause is seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. Currently a co-owner of the Legacy Motor Club, Johnson spoke to the media in Texas and answered questions regarding limited testing in the Next Gen car.
Back when Johnson was still a regular face on the track on race days, there were several weekend practice sessions and each of them ran longer than today. The COVID pandemic changed the course of things and forced NASCAR to shorten races. The promotion felt that reducing the time spent on the track before the main race allowed less resourceful teams to save money.
From Johnson’s perspective, the benefits of greater practice outweigh the drawbacks. “The tests are not long enough to make a significant change to the car. » he said. “I certainly understand and appreciate the efforts to reduce costs. We’re not going to sit around, you know? Today, we rely heavily on our simulation.
He continued, “The tricky thing about simulation is trying to feed the data pipeline and the information pipeline so that your simulation runs correctly and goes to the real world and the simulator that you’re driving goes to the real world . It’s really very difficult with the little track time he has for all the teams to benefit from.
Johnson says less resourceful teams aren’t able to translate data from their simulations into real-world performance because of the shortened track time they have. While NASCAR’s cost-saving intentions may be reasonable, they could paradoxically cause more harm to the bottom dogs in the points table.
Jimmie Johnson’s solution to the problem of limited workouts
Continuing, the former champion also said that new and inexperienced drivers could benefit from longer race times before the main race. He clarified that there was no need to return to the days when practice sessions lasted four hours and that simply doubling the duration to 40-45 minutes could do the trick.
He concluded, “I think you could, you know, really help the industry as a whole be more efficient in spending because, right now, it’s… Man, you’re just throwing darts and hoping that you spend the right way for different things.” Johnson’s request will be an important consideration when the topic comes on the NASCAR table. However, no changes are visible in the immediate vicinity.
