Denny Hamlin: Battle with William Byron illustrates challenge of NASCAR NextGen car

William Byron and Denny Hamlin seemed destined to duel for the win in this past weekend’s Coca-Cola 600. Ross Chastain rose above and defeated them both, but the battle between the veteran wheelmen throughout the race was something to behold.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver attempted to illustrate how the conflict between himself and Byron was the perfect example of the challenges the Cup Series’ best deal with week-in and week-out with the NextGen car. It’s a on-going battle to find any type of rhythm.

“The NextGen car, most of the transition with it is that it gets looser as you burn fuel. The back of the car starts to come up, and the car just generally gets looser. You don’t load it as much. You can’t drive in the corner as deep. You lose a lot of rear downforce as runs go on. What can make that even worse is, if you get in clean air and you have nobody in front of you, you’re not pushing the front tires to their capability. You can’t drive in deep enough to push the front tires to their capability and then bias your wear to the front, so then next thing you know, you get loose,” Hamlin explained.

“I was always able to keep pace with Byron and really be right on his ass the entire second half of the race, but it’s where my car was best. He did a good job, kind of aero-blocking, at times. I felt like, when we worked him over and finally got to the lead, my balance instantly shifted quite a bit. Next thing you know, I was loose. I was fighting the same thing that he was fighting when I was right behind him. So, it was interesting.

“That’s what made it such a good and compelling and close race, that the advantage actually belonged to the second-place guy. Not as much as Xfinity, but like, the leader was disadvantaged more than he typically is. He still had the advantage, as far as being able to aero-block. We saw it a bunch of times where Byron would come down, take my line, and it would just make my car just shoot up the racetrack.

“That’s still a major, major issue, but it didn’t allow you to get away. Once you got out front, in the long run, typically somebody was coming and catching you, because your balance would go loose.”

It certainly was a step up from some of the racing we’ve seen in the Cup Series in 2025. In the end, watching Chastain run Byron down was as satisfying as an ending as someone could’ve asked for during the Coca-Cola 600, as he came from dead-last to Victory Lane after crashing in practice.

Denny Hamlin would’ve certainly rather have had himself add another trophy to his collection, and he might’ve had something to say about it if not for a late pit stop that went awry. Regardless, the show at Charlotte Motor Speedway was encouraging for NASCAR fans around the globe, and we’ll see what Nashville has in store for an encore this coming weekend.