Kevin Harvick isn’t ready to award Chevrolet any gold stars just yet for its Cup Series body. In fact, the 2014 NASCAR Cup champion believes the American marque is going into the 2026 season with more questions than answers.
While it’s an exciting time for fans who welcome a new-looking shell to the grid, it opens up the team to a weakness: it doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. Chevrolet doesn’t have the data to fully understand it yet in dirty air, clean air, or in traffic. And its drivers don’t yet have the confidence in the shell to drive it all out.
It will be a little while until enough real-world data is collected to fully understand it. Right now, data comes from simulations and wind tunnels.
Harvick expects this lack of data to show itself in the early part of this season.
“Chevrolet has a new body,” Harvick said. “I don’t think you’ll see it at Bowman Gray. When you get to Daytona, you gotta work the balance out. I think that there is going to be some…
“They might be great on superspeedways. Might be great on short tracks. They might be great on intermediates. We don’t really know that yet. They’re guessing,” Harvick added.
“They’ve done no more than guess at this point. They can tell you whatever they want, but they’re going to have to work out the balance of that new body. It will take them some time to get it worked out on all the tracks. They’re probably gonna hit it somewhere, but I don’t think any of us know exactly which type of track.”
With NASCAR boasting a calendar that swings from draft-heavy superspeedways to abrasive and tight tracks, a shell that works in one scenario can be a headache at another venue – especially if a team is starting from scratch with its aero maps and setups.
“It won’t be perfect right out of the gate,” team owner Rick Hendrick said when the news was announced of the new shell, “but I’m excited about having a new car with a little more downforce and more power.”
