Kevin Harvick torches NASCAR qualifying, practice format

Kevin Harvick wants to make qualifying great again. In order to achieve that, Harvick believes it’s time for NASCAR to get rid of the Performance Metrics Based Line-Up formula.

In the Cup Series, cars are separated into two groups. Group 1 consists of those with a higher Performance Metrics Based Line-Up score. Group 2 includes cars with a lower Performance Metrics Based Line-Up score. Harvick would like to see a random draw, he said on Tuesday’s “Happy Hour” podcast.

“I hate the metric. I hate everything about the metric. It’s hard to explain,” Harvick said. “We should get back to everything about the practice groups and the qualifying groups or qualifying order, we should get back to the random draw. … If it rains out, I love your metric. For qualifying every week in order to keep it mixed up, let’s just get that bingo ball roller out.

“Every time you mix it up, that just gives you another element into the mix to have a random qualifying draw and random practice groups just to keep that mixed up. Now, we have the slow guys from last week all together and then you got the fast guys and the rich get richer. … The metric needs to go away. Put that thing in the garbage unless it rains.”

As Harvick mentioned, the metric sets the field when qualifying is canceled for weather. That setup is fine for Harvick, but he’s ready to see some new groups under normal circumstances.

NASCAR makes changes to qualifying for 2025 season

NASCAR made changes to qualifying for the 2025 season. For standard practice in the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series, there is single-round qualifying at every track except for superspeedways. Starting position is based on qualifying results rather than row-by-row designations according to the qualifying group. NASCAR Cup director Brad Moran believed the new qualifying system would be “welcomed by industry.”

“I think it’s going to be welcomed by the industry,” Moran said in December, via NASCAR.com. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback throughout the year, and we made a couple of adjustments through the year, and we really wanted to take a whole fresh look at it.

“A lot of this came into play back in COVID, when we tightened things up, so we’re kind of going back a little to what we used to do again. We’re going to have a little more practice, which is obviously better for the fans and the partners.”

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