This NASCAR season has been historically unfair

Each week, the author of this column is responsible for an analytical recap of the weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series action. One of the main metrics cited in these recaps is a “Fairness Rating,” a number designed to correlate how well race results match up with the drivers’ overall performances, and in recent times, these ratings have often been incredibly low.

The average Fairness Rating for the entire 2024 Cup Series season is 0.6411, a figure that required extensive statistical analysis of how it compares to previous years. The results are in, and the author’s hypothesis has been unsurprisingly confirmed: of all the seasons for which the data has been sufficiently calculated, 2024 is the most unfair so far.

The above tweet may only be from 2019, but this number was calculated as far back as 2005 (when NASCAR’s loop data began) and yet no season has ever been as unfair as this one. There are a few reasons why this may be the case.

The most obvious factor is the high frequency of overtime finishes in 2024. In just 25 races, no fewer than 10 have required extra laps due to a late yellow flag, including the last four in a row. Such finishes are always prone to chaos that disrupts the finishing order, with drivers pushing hard and having to make difficult decisions about whether or not to pit for fresh tyres for that final race.

In recent years, Cup Series racing has become more competitive, with the majority of competitors being priced out of the sport due to high prize money. By the late 2010s, teams like Rick Ware Racing, Premium Motorsports, GoFAS Racing, StarCom Racing, Gaunt Brothers Racing and many others simply didn’t have the resources to keep up, and their results generally reflected that. Other than taking advantage of faster cars dropping out, they had little way to improve their results.

Today, all of those teams except Ware are gone, and the 36 Cup Series teams are all owned by well-funded organizations that can at least flirt with the top 10 on a good day. Unfortunately, the upward mobility of team owners in today’s NASCAR is less significant, but it does create a more competitive playing field and thus a higher degree of variance in results.

The biggest factor, however, seems to be the introduction of the NextGen (or Gen-7) car. There has been a noticeable drop in fairness ratings between 2021 and 2022, when the NextGen car was introduced, and with that car, the speeds across the field are significantly closer. Track position is more important than ever, and there are more cars on the lead lap at the end of races, meaning that if the finish gets chaotic, all bets are off.

Previously, if a driver whose car wasn’t fast enough managed to get to the lead through strategy, it was difficult for him to maintain it. Now, it seems that the opposite is much more difficult, as a driver who has been close to the lead throughout the race will have a hard time regaining it if he loses track position. It’s harder for the best to get to the top, and when you add in the other factors mentioned, the result is the most unpredictable Cup Series season in at least 20 years.

Parity is never a bad thing. That said, it is also something that should be achieved naturally, rather than created by a high degree of luck. In 2024, parity in the NASCAR Cup Series is largely the result of luck.