The NASCAR Cup season is just over half way and from the 36 planned races we have seen the chequered flag19 times, this it gives us a good moment to take a look at who's doing well and what stands out in the current season stats.
Out of the 19 races so far we've had 11 different&nbsp; winners, if we compare that stat to last season's race winners (13 out 36 races) then it has been so far a season with more variety based on the drivers who have won. The driver with the most wins at the halfway point is Kyle Larson (Hendrick Motorsports - Chevrolet) who has won four races; more remarkable is that Larson won three races in a row (Charlotte, Sonoma &amp; Nashville). He has also started four times from pole position and won two of those races. Not only has Larson the most wins (4) and started four times from pole position, he also has the most fastest lap times, also four.
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So far 59 drivers have started this season in a Cup race, 36 drivers have a some stage led a race which is 61% of the drivers. It's another stat that shows how variable this season has been as last year over a full season of 36 races we had 43 different drivers that led at least one lap in a race.&nbsp;
On the teams side is has been a slightly different story with only four teams able to win a race. The team having best chance of a win is Hendrick Motorsports, the team from Charlotte North Carolina which competes with Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE's and has won nine of the 19 races. All four drivers of the team have at least won one race (Alex Bowman (3), Chase Elliott (1), Kyle Larson (4) and William Byron (1)).
Thirteen drivers have made their debut this season since the Daytona 500, the best of the Rookies has been Chase Briscoe (Stewart-Haas Racing / Ford). Briscoe (26 years from Mitchell, Indiana) had his best result in the 19 races as a 6th place at the Circuit Of The Americas (COTA) in the EchoPark Texas Grand Prix. His best oval result has been twice in 11th place at Talladega and Darlington.
Championship leads are not so relevant during the year as NASCAR works with a playoff system for the title towards the end of the year but consistency is always important! Denny Hamlin (Joe Gibbs Racing - Toyota) hasn't won a race yet this season but has been able fo finish in the Top 5 ten times, thirteen times he finished in the Top 10 and has an average finish of 8.53 which is a career best at the moment. He has been in the lead of the championship since the second race at Daytona. Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing - Chevrolet) is the other driver who led after the Daytona 500.
From the active drivers Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch now have both 58 wins in NASCAR Cup, Harvick hasn't won a race since last year's second Bristol race,&nbsp; while Kyle Busch has been setting a new milestone in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with 100 wins and has won twice in the Cup this year (Kansas and the second Pocono race).

Nascar Cup Series

Denny Hamlin

Chase Briscoe

Hendrick Motorsports

Kyle Larson

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NASCAR Cup mid season recap

NASCAR Cup mid season stats recap

The intriguing, serrated floor edge that Alfa Romeo revealed at the launch of its new Formula 1 car has been confirmed as a &lsquo;fake&rsquo; by team insiders.
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The Hinwil-based operation was the first squad to unveil a genuine 2023 challenger earlier this year at an event it held in Zurich.&nbsp;
Launch renders of the new C43 showed the car with a unique serrated solution that featured a run of fins all along the edge of the floor.&nbsp;
However, when the new car ran for the first time in a shakedown at Barcelona, the floor design was very different and was much more traditional.
That prompted a number of theories, including that Alfa Romeo could be waiting to unleash the floor later in the year, or it was a development route that got abandoned early on.&nbsp;
There were also suggestions that Alfa Romeo had played a trick with its launch images &ndash; and played around with the design to not show off what it was really doing with this critical area of the car.&nbsp;
With the season now underway, high-level sources within Alfa Romeo have confirmed that the serrated floor design was indeed a total fake &ndash; put on the car as a bit of fun and to distract rival teams about what it was up to.&nbsp;
What made the Alfa Romeo launch floor so intriguing was that while it seemed extreme, it did appear to be a perfectly acceptable approach to dealing with the current F1 regulations.&nbsp;
From a legality perspective, the vertical flap and the nine winglets attached to it appeared to obey the rules laid out for the floor edge and the 'edge wing', with the vertical flap they are anchored to being aided by the brackets that are also allowed.
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Other than the winglets being mounted upon the vertical flap, there were two interesting side effects to note in this solution.&nbsp;
Firstly, on the left, you could see how the flap would provide a corridor for the airflow between it and the sidepod's flank.&nbsp;
Secondly, on the right, the flap was mounted above the floor edge's level (dotted yellow line to help show the separation), with the brackets allowing the airflow a route with which to circulate to the outside of the flap.&nbsp;
However, while legal, it is now clear that Alfa Romeo never seriously intended to race with the floor &ndash; and instead it was all just part of the pre-season gamesmanship with rivals.&nbsp;
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Alfa Romeo

Formula One

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By Jonathan Noble

Alfa Romeo’s mystery F1 2023 launch floor was a total fake

Toto Wolff insists his Mercedes Formula 1 team is "sticking together" amid comments from Lewis Hamilton that it 'didn't listen' to his input on the 2023 car.
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After making rapid progress towards the end of a troubled 2022 campaign, Mercedes was hopeful of closing the gap with Red Bull and Ferrari but instead has found itself further adrift in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Mercedes came out of the 2023 season opener as the fourth-fastest team after Hamilton was powerless to resist Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso on his charge to the podium behind both Red Bulls. Team-mate George Russell was similarly beaten to sixth by Lance Stroll.
Having dialed out crippling porpoising issues with help from the raised floor rules for 2023, Mercedes hoped it would finally be able to unearth the full potential of its design philosophy.
But when Bahrain qualifying confirmed that Mercedes had regressed instead, team boss Wolff admitted the Brackley outfit would have to abandon the W14's design concept, saying he "didn't think this package is going to be competitive eventually."
After the race Lewis Hamilton told BBC 5 Live that the team 'didn't' listen' to his input on the 2023 car, saying: "Last year, there were things I told them, I said the issues that are with the car.
"I've driven so many cars in my life, so I know what a car needs, I know what a car doesn't need. And I think it's really about accountability.
"It's about owning up and saying: 'Yeah, you know what? We didn't listen to you. It's not where it used to be and we've got to work.'"
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Despite those hints of frustration from the seven-time world champion, Wolff insisted the team is sticking together and its strong relationship with Hamilton is intact.
"The Lewis situation is you heard him on the radio. He is an integral part of the team, picking the team up and we are all sticking together and I don&rsquo;t think that is going to change just because we had a start that was really bad," Wolff said.
"We have won eight constructors' championships and six drivers&rsquo; championships with him and that relationship holds.&rdquo;
Hamilton's Mercedes deal is running out at the end of the year, but Wolff says he is not yet worried about losing the eight-time world champion.
"As much as being transparent as to how we need to turn the car around, it is not the point to talk about the driver situation in 2024," he replied when asked if he has a plan B in case Hamilton decides to walk away.
"It is far too early, we need to all push in then same direction, the drivers, the engineers, all the management rather than throwing in the towel. We have never done that and we will not do it.&rdquo;
"We just need to really dig deep and deeper than we have every done and provide both drivers with a car they are able to fight with."
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Torger Christian Toto Wolff

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton

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By Filip Cleeren

Wolff: Mercedes F1 "sticking together" amid Hamilton's 'didn't listen' remarks

McLaren technical director James Key says that the team's current problems result from a late change of aerodynamic philosophy triggered by the 2023 Formula 1 rule changes.
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Last summer the teams and the FIA agreed to a rise of 15mm in the floor edge height as part of an attempt to address porpoising.
Having tried the new spec in the wind tunnel, McLaren decided that it would be difficult to recover performance with the 2023 car with the package it was running.
Thus, in September, the team decided to take a different route, one that offered much more potential.
The call was made too late to ready the full new package for Bahrain, which is why the team is instead aiming to make a big leap when it is introduced in Baku.
"Where this happened actually is when we took the 15mm floor step," said Key.
"So we all agreed that as porpoising protection, which was very sensible given at the time last year that was still quite a major issue. It began to improve for everyone as things improved during the year.
"That sounds very small, but these floors are huge and incredibly sensitive. Look at how much downforce it generates, massive. So when we did it on our car, it actually gave us a much bigger loss than anticipated. It seems to have affected different teams in different ways.
"And to a certain extent, it seems to be related to the floor edge geometry that you're running at the time."
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The call was made too late to ready the full new package for Bahrain, which is why the team is instead aiming to make a big leap when it is introduced in Baku.
"Where this happened actually is when we took the 15mm floor step," said Key.
"So we all agreed that as porpoising protection, which was very sensible given at the time last year that was still quite a major issue. It began to improve for everyone as things improved during the year.
"That sounds very small, but these floors are huge and incredibly sensitive. Look at how much downforce it generates, massive. So when we did it on our car, it actually gave us a much bigger loss than anticipated. It seems to have affected different teams in different ways.
"And to a certain extent, it seems to be related to the floor edge geometry that you're running at the time."
"Which is a big change, because they're very big projects, and very complex projects.
"So I think the timing of the reg, and the fact that we took a particularly large hit, and then that it clearly wasn't going to come back easily, meant that we had to change direction quite late."
Key insists that the reason why the team didn't rush to get the complete new package to the first race in Bahrain was because it wanted to ensure that it was fully developed and understood.
"It wasn't like we were dawdling around and thinking what to do, and actually why don't we do this," he said. "It was sort of forced upon us by a recognition that the new regs weren't going to recover with what we knew from last year.
"That led to a completely refreshed and revamped approach to that area of the car. It takes a while to develop these things. We tried to get it for race one, it wasn't mature enough.
"It would have performed a bit better. But with these floors, you've got to maintain stability, good correlation and everything else to guarantee that it's going work, and it was a little bit risky for race one."
Asked by Motorsport.com if it was frustrating to have made the call so late, Key said: "Absolutely, I mean, it is frustrating because, to be honest, the route we're on now seems to be pretty prolific, it's doing what we hoped it would do. There's still some work to do.
"The development rate on that is so much higher than what we had. Had the reg been earlier or had we clocked the fact that actually you need to do a different thing with this four weeks earlier, we wouldn't be talking about it right now, to be honest.
"So it's a bit it's a bit of a shame, but we are where we are, and we're just going to recover from it."
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McLaren

2023 Bahrain Grand Prix

By Adam Cooper

How a 15mm difference triggered McLaren's F1 2023 woes

The race itself will stay with a simplified format – two heat races to set the All-Star Race starting lineup, a 100-lap All-Star Open, and a 200-lap main event at the historic .625-mile track that pays $1 million to the winner.However, several new features will debut including a tire strategy element, a new qualifying/pit crew challenge format and pitting requirements.Potentially, three ...<a class='more' href='https://www.motorsport.com/nascar-cup/news/2024-nascar-all-star-race-format-includes-different-tire-compounds/10602569/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-ALL&utm_term=News&utm_content=www'>Keep reading</a>

The race itself will stay with a simplified format – two heat races to set the All-Star Race starting lineup, a 100-lap All-Star Open, and a 200-lap main event at the historic .625-mile track that pays $1 million to the winner.However, several new features will debut including a tire strategy element, a new qualifying/pit crew challenge format and pitting requirements.Potentially, three ...Keep reading

2024 NASCAR All-Star Race format includes different tire compounds

While Rosenqvist was able to the lead opening lap, which started under caution due to a Race Control issue. Once the green flag came out on lap 2 of 85, though he quickly lost the top spot to fellow front row starter Will Power, who surged by with an outside move into Turn 1 in the No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet.It proved to mark the beginning of a downward slide as the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing ...<a class='more' href='https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/news/brake-issues-hinder-rosenqvists-chances-for-victory-in-long-beach/10602566/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-ALL&utm_term=News&utm_content=www'>Keep reading</a>

While Rosenqvist was able to the lead opening lap, which started under caution due to a Race Control issue. Once the green flag came out on lap 2 of 85, though he quickly lost the top spot to fellow front row starter Will Power, who surged by with an outside move into Turn 1 in the No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet.It proved to mark the beginning of a downward slide as the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing ...Keep reading

Brake issues hinder Rosenqvist’s chances for victory in Long Beach

Dixon sliced ahead of Power on lap 24, taking the benefit of his fresh set of alternate tires, and went on to score a famous victory by managing his fuel saving to perfection.Power started the race from the front row on his softer-compound rubber, and jumped ahead of poleman Felix Rosenqvist at the opening corner.He extended a 6.5s lead only for Christian Rasmussen to cause the race’s sole ...<a class='more' href='https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/news/will-power-defense-scott-dixon-tire-strategy/10602562/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-ALL&utm_term=News&utm_content=www'>Keep reading</a>

Dixon sliced ahead of Power on lap 24, taking the benefit of his fresh set of alternate tires, and went on to score a famous victory by managing his fuel saving to perfection.Power started the race from the front row on his softer-compound rubber, and jumped ahead of poleman Felix Rosenqvist at the opening corner.He extended a 6.5s lead only for Christian Rasmussen to cause the race’s sole ...Keep reading

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