In November 2016, Carl Edwards crashed out of the NASCAR Cup Series championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway — a moment that ultimately marked the end of his career. That same night, Jimmie Johnson achieved NASCAR immortality by tying Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. with his seventh championship.
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This weekend, for the first time since that evening in South Florida more than six years ago, NASCAR will race with no scheduled cautions.
Stage breaks have been around for that long, with every Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Truck Series race since 2017 interrupted at least twice by pre-planned yellow flags to divide up the action and force the field to reset.
To be clear, the three NASCAR national series races at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas will still have stages, which pay points to the top 10 finishers — it’s just NASCAR won’t be stopping the race at the conclusion of each one. That’s part of a new rule for all road courses this season after it became obvious the stages were ruining the strategy on such circuits.
Will that impact the race? Let’s take a look at that question, along with several others, before the COTA weekend gets started.
How will the strategy change with no stage breaks?
For the past few seasons, pit strategy for road courses had been pretty simple thanks to the stage cautions:
Option No. 1 was to forego the chance to get stage points, pit a few laps before the end of the stage and then cycle back out to the front after the caution.
Option No. 2 was to try and win the stage (or at least get some stage points), but then be willing to lose all the track position after pitting during the stage break.
Teams essentially had to pick one or the other: collect stage points or go for the win.
“Eliminating the breaks and (adding) the ability for us to run green flags pretty organically … it really changes the strategy of the race and how to go about your speed,” Team Penske’s Austin Cindric said. “But most important, it gives the chance for the best cars of that race to be rewarded for being the best.”
By scrapping the caution flags, there’s a chance for some long, green-flag runs. More than any other road course on the circuit, COTA has a large amount of paved runoff area — meaning mistakes like a spin may not result in a caution. And once the field gets spread out, there’s less chance for cars to make contact with each other.
But it also could wear out some drivers to the point Cindric predicted at least one will “fall out of the seat” (racing lingo for when a driver gets so physically exhausted, they can no longer race at their full capacity).
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“It’s more possible this weekend than any other weekend,” Cindric said. “It’s not going to be cool by any means (with temperatures forecast to be in the 80s) and it’s a physically challenging track. … You’re using a lot of the runoff that wasn’t meant to be driven on, so you’re getting tossed around in there, banging around, grabbing gears all the time and using your legs to brake. On top of that, they’re pretty hot race cars to drive.”
Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger noted the lack of stages will also put a premium on qualifying. If a driver starts toward the back, they won’t have the automatic cautions to allow them to catch up and close the distance to the leader.
“Being up front early on is going to be very important,” Allmendinger said.
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How will the road course ringers fare?
Rarely has there been so much world-class talent in a single NASCAR race.
The Cup Series race at COTA will see two former Formula 1 world drivers’ champions, Kimi Raikkonen and Jenson Button, compete on a circuit both have driven in F1. Raikkonen won his final career F1 race at COTA in 2018 and Button scored points on four of the five F1 races in which he competed there.
In Raikkonen’s Cup Series debut last summer at Watkins Glen, the other cars on his strategy ended up finishing in the top 10. It’s reasonable to assume he would have done the same, except he was caught up in a wreck and didn’t get to finish the race. This time, with another good car from Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 team, Raikkonen might do even better on a course he knows well.
Button is driving for Rick Ware Racing, a two-car team which has not finished inside the top 20 since the Daytona 500. But Button’s car is expected to be prepared by Stewart-Haas Racing and he has a notable sponsor in Mobil 1, meaning there should be a full-scale effort to get speed out of his No. 15 Ford.
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Then there’s Jordan Taylor, who is making his NASCAR national series debut but is an IMSA sports car racing champion and will be climbing into one of the fastest cars in the field — the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports (currently vacant due to Chase Elliott’s broken leg). Even with no stock car experience, Taylor could be capable of running very well and surprising some people who might not be as familiar with him.
Two more big names in the field: IndyCar’s Conor Daly, who will drive for Floyd Mayweather’s The Money Team Racing, and Jimmie Johnson, who is making his first NASCAR road course start since 2020. Daly’s No. 50 car has yet to show it can compete on speed with the top teams and Johnson’s ride is a part-time effort for the Legacy Motor Club team he co-owns, so how well those cars can perform remains an open question.
What impact will the new aero rules package have on the race?
The low-downforce rules package recently adopted for short tracks and debuted at Phoenix Raceway earlier this month will also be used for road courses this season, with COTA being the first attempt. No one is sure exactly what it will change with the handling, so NASCAR added an extra practice session on Friday (for what was originally supposed to be a Saturday-Sunday show for the Cup Series).
Will it shake up the balance of power on road courses? Will the cars be significantly harder to drive? Allmendinger said he expected it would be “completely different,” but Friday’s test will reveal to what degree.
Said Cindric: “Your guess is as good as mine as far as what it’s going to be like compared to last year’s aero configuration, other than the fact it’s a lot less downforce, which means there will be a lot less grip and a lot slower.”
Will the ‘choose rule’ make a difference?
Another new rule for road courses this year: For the first time, NASCAR will bring its “choose rule” to the twisty tracks. On the lap before the restart, at the end of COTA’s long straightaway, drivers will pick one lane or the other for their restarts.
It probably won’t make a huge impact on the race because all restarts at COTA result in the field fanning out into Turn 1 at the top of the giant hill. As Cindric noted, the choose rule for drivers often means “an opportunity to screw up more than an opportunity to gain something.”
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But if it’s a late-race restart when drivers are particularly aggressive, it could certainly play a role in the outcome.
“At the end of the race, you possibly want to be on the inside just because everybody comes barreling down in there,” Allmendinger said. “If you’re on the outside lane, you get shoved wide.”
Who has the edge on Sunday?
My pick: Kyle Busch. Last year, Tyler Reddick won two of the six road-course races for Richard Childress Racing — and now Busch is in that No. 8 car with the same team. Reddick is a fantastic talent, but Busch is also a great road racer and could easily win on Sunday if he’s able to find the feel he wants out of the car.
Yes, the Hendrick cars will be good (as they typically are at road courses). A win from Kyle Larson wouldn’t be surprising at all, and he’s the favorite with the sportsbooks. But Busch should be able to seize the opportunity if he gets it.
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(Photo: Logan Riely / Getty Images)