"I knew not to have any expectations for this year" - Kevin Harvick on the challenges with the Next Gen car so far this NASCAR Cup Series season

2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick is back to his form in the 2022 season after winning the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. In doing so, the #4 Ford driver snapped his 65-race winless streak, taking his career win tally to 59, and his first win in the Next Gen car.

NASCAR is returning to Richmond for the second time this season and with 23 races completed, it’s safe to say that Next Gen cars have produced some high-intensity competition. Harvick recently spoke about his experience with how the Next Gen cars have performed so far this season. Describing the challenges of the Next Gen car, he said:

“It’s all totally different. I think after the Roval test last year, I knew not to have any expectations for this year. We were either going to be on the front side of this thing or we were going to be behind. There wasn’t going to really be any middle road. We found out we were behind and had to start really going to work, and I think as you look at this particular car, everything about it is different.”

Kevin Harvick will return to the track for this weekend’s Cup race, where he has three runner-up finishes, nine top-five and 12 top-10 finishes in the previous 16 Cup starts. Despite those brilliant performances, Harvick has not been able to clinch a victory at this track but this time he will look to continue last weekend’s good form at Richmond Raceway on Sunday.

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“You’d like to be close enough to at least give yourself a chance” – Kevin Harvick

Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick returned to Richmond Raceway with back-to-back top-10 finishes in his last two outings at the track. The 46-year-old finished runner-up at Toyota Owners 400 in early April this year and P8 in last year’s Federated Auto Parts 400.

Speaking about his impressive P2 finish at Richmond Raceway when NASCAR raced earlier this season, Harvick said:

“You’d like to be close enough to at least give yourself a chance. There at the end, we just kind of got jumbled up in traffic and never really got a chance to be close enough to make something happen. The team did a good job making a good pit call and our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang was pretty decent all weekend.”

Catch Harvick at Richmond Raceway on Sunday, August 14, 2022, at 3 pm ET.