NASCAR in 2026 has seen a series of changes in its regulations. From the changed playoff format to the 750-hp packages for short tracks/road courses, there will be many new elements starting this weekend. Among them, there has also been a tweak that NASCAR just released ahead of the Daytona 500, something that left fans divided.

No hands outside the car

Nearly a week before the Daytona 500 at the Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR banned the practice of drivers placing their hands against their window nets during qualifying. Drivers usually do this to prevent drag, but now it is a banned practice, going by section 8.3.2 of NASCAR’s rule book.

“As determined by NASCAR, once a vehicle exits pit road during a Qualifying attempt, the driver’s hands may not be used to redirect air in any manner, including but not limited to touching the window net, blocking air from entering the cockpit, redirecting air from the window, etc. Non-compliance will result in loss of Qualifying time,” a NASCAR statement read.

Drivers would stick their hands out against the window net to deflect air from the cockpit. This has been a practice they have used to obtain less drag and find that extra tenth, hundredth, or thousandth of a second. This has been most prominent at superspeedway tracks such as Daytona, Atlanta, and Talladega.

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Team Penske driver Joey Logano‘s Atlanta race during the 2024 season grabbed everyone’s attention. Logano wore a clearly altered glove in qualifying, and its webbing was made of an unspecified material between the fingers. According to some reports, he used his hand as an aerodynamic blocker while racing. Once the broadcaster picked it up, NASCAR noticed it and fined Logano $100,000 for an illegal modification.

The drivers have ample reasons behind this activity. If they manage to reduce the tiniest drag, it could have enormous implications in qualifying and amount to multiple places in the qualifying. However, NASCAR realized the existence of this practice and banned it just before the 2026 edition of the race, leaving fans wondering if the move was right.

Fans wonder if NASCAR made the right call

“Every little bit can help, even if it’s only psychological. If I was tall like Joey Logano, I’d be working on my gymnastic stretches so that I could get my left knee up to that opening. The rule, as written (or at least as reported), only applies to hands,” a fan wrote, signifying how the reduction of tiniest drag can be of great help to the drivers.

“Logano was the one busted using a webbed glove at Daytona a couple years ago. There was a pretty big stink about that, so it seems that it made enough difference,” another fan wrote, recalling how NASCAR fined Joey Logano at Atlanta in 2024.

“When the difference between pole and mid-pack might be a quarter second, you’ll take everything you can get,” wrote another fan, pointing out how the air deflection can cause an enormous effect.

“They advantage is pennies on the dollar. Is there an advantage to it? Sure there is. Is it going to make the difference in whether or not you win the 500 pole -that is highly improbable. A hand deflecting air is never going to make up for horsepower, setup, or aero disadvantages,” another fan wrote, disagreeing with the call.

He was of the opinion that such a minute detail is unlikely to help a driver with the pole unless their car is strong enough during the race weekend.

“There’s too many variables that are so small it’s impossible to really know. Out of a thousand variables that dictate a lap time at a superspeedway, the air resistance at the front of the window net is just one. Teams that used that method were more or less just eliminating one tiny variable, whether that variable actually shaved off a few thousandths over a lap, who knows,” said one.

“The fact that only like half the drivers even did it probably says more than anything that the gains were so negligible, if any, that drivers didn’t find it worth taking a hand off the wheel to bother,” they added, again being skeptical of the difference the new rule makes in the bigger picture. According to them, the airflow effect is too small and negligible to meaningfully impact lap times, so the rule seems unnecessary.