Teammates Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray are part of the two-car Chip Ganassi Chevrolet team, No.’s 1 and 42. Daytona is just around the corner and both drivers are ready for the coming season but a little conversation about the new format is on their minds.
“I like the strategy in the new format a lot,” McMurray said. “I also like that at a restrictor plate race what might happen. I’m kind of a run in the back guy, but this format will keep us near the front. If you run well and then crash out, at least you might get something from it. I like that.”
Larson hasn’t made up his mind quite yet. He has a problem with people thinking that Cup drivers don’t drive hard at every race, one of the reasons everyone expects was at the forefront of the format change in NASCAR’s three series.
“I don’t know. We’ve got to wait and see, I guess. I think everybody already races hard, so it’s not like everybody is going to step up any harder than we already are,” Larson said. “I don’t know. My qualifying is up and down. I think qualifying is going to be more important now, this year, for gaining points, especially in that first segment. So, if you can qualify well, you should be able to gain more points. It will be interesting to see. I don’t really know how the style of racing is going to change with this new format until we kind of get going throughout the first month or month and a half.”
McMurray did reveal that most of the drivers were kept “in the loop” about the changes and knew what the changes were going to be. He thinks it’s good for the sport and doesn’t understand why there is so much resistance.
“When I read Twitter, I got angry as I read the negativity around it from the fans because I think it’s so hard to criticize something before you see it, right? We live in a world where I feel like people don’t like change unless it’s for the President,” McMurray said.
Larson won his first Cup race in 2016 and is looking to visit victory lane more often in 2017. The direction of the team is definitely going the right way, but there is room for improvement.
“To be a championship team, you need to just be better than everybody at everything,” Larson said. “I could do a better job at executing. Our pit calls could be better. I’m not saying that anything is bad, but I’m saying that everything could be a little bit better to gain lap time and improve on finishes. So, we just try to focus hard and dig down deep to make everything a little bit better.”
