The 2022 Cup Series season is bringing with it massive changes. One of them pertains to the use of a single lug nut as opposed to five. Of course, this would mean a massive overhaul of the pit stop procedure. Recently, the 23XI Racing team revealed that they have got some special plans in place for 2022.
According to team co-owner Denny Hamlin, he plans to set up the organization similar to that of a Formula 1 team. Crew chief Mike Wheeler revealed that he spoke to a few F1 teams and organizations to learn from them. His main goal was to gauge how the Formula 1 teams were structured.
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“I talked to people last January about this, knowing that Gen-7 was coming,” Wheeler said. “How F1 teams go have two teams. They work together, yet they have one core group on the station on pit lane calling the race. In practice, everyone has their own ideas, but they have a boss and one of them is a senior race engineer, who says ‘You are going to change the camber, and you are going to change toe, and you’re going to report back to us what it does.’ Everyone knows where everyone’s setup is supposed to start. Everyone knows where they’re headed for setup.”
Will this help the 23XI Racing team?
To be perfectly honest, Wheeler’s efforts could be a stroke of genius. He revealed that the people he consulted found some flaws with the system. As per their observations, they studied it thoroughly and discovered a few holes. The 23XI Racing crew chief also acknowledged team president Steve Lauletta’s influence.
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His input was pretty valuable, as he served as an executive at Chip Ganassi Racing. Owing to that, he was able to gauge how his own organization handled its NASCAR and IndyCar operations. Once they identified issues, they could set about trying to iron them out. How much of an impact do you think these changes will have on the outfit?
