The diff4ence between the SHR cars
During the Martinsville broadcast, Parker Kilgerman relayed information he heard speaking to the Rodney Childers, the crew chief of the Stewart-Haas Racing #4 car: SHR's 10, 14, and 41 cars all use the same setup for races, whereas the 4 uses a setup personalized to its driver, Kevin Harvick. They lean on the veteran Harvick to know what's going to work best:
Something interesting from [Kevin Harvick's] crew chief Rodney Childers. we talk about the veteran that is Kevin Harvick, he said to me you know, when you look at the 14 of Chase Briscoe, Ryan Preece and the 41, Aric Almirola: they all run the same setup. He said, Kevin, we run an entirely different setup, and Steve I think that's something interesting for fans out there to realize. When you have a veteran driver who knows that feel, even in an NextGen car, how many races he's been in here, he has a setup that's entirely different than them...
29:00 to 30:25 if the embed above doesn't work
As someone trying to keep drivers separate from the cars to get a better grip on who influences what, I find that remark pretty interesting! Here's a stats dump, and after that, an inconclusive analysis thereof:
2023 Short Tracks
| Stat | 4 | 10 | 14 | 41 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASP | 11.75 (8) | 18.75 (23) | 14.63 (13) | 18.38 (22) |
| ARP | 12.2 (9) | 14.85 (15) | 15.33 (17) | 14.49 (14) |
| AFP | 13.5 (11) | 17.25 (20) | 13.25 (10) | 15.88 (18) |
| Avg. PFAE | 1.886 (17) | 1.998 (16) | 3.68 (11) | 3.015 (13) |
| cPOMS | 0.9793 (7) | 0.9772 (14) | 0.9739 (22) | 0.9767 (17) |
| SS | 3.02 (5) | -1.58 (18) | -1.33 (17) | 0.07 (13) |
Rank is in parentheses.
2023 Overall
| Stat | 4 | 10 | 14 | 41 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASP | 15.89 (15) | 18.09 (20) | 18.26 (21) | 23.26 (25) |
| ARP | 13.27 (9) | 16.62 (17) | 19.92 (23) | 18.99 (20) |
| AFP | 14.94 (10) | 19.83 (21) | 20.23 (22) | 21.03 (26) |
| Avg. PFAE | 2.613 (5) | -1.244 (24) | -1.659 (28) | -0.103 (22) |
| cPOMS | 0.9765 (9) | 0.9736 (17) | 0.9684 (26) | 0.9702 (24) |
| SS | -0.24 (12) | -3.72 (23) | -5.0 (25) | -3.76 (24) |
2022 Short Tracks
| Stat | 4 | 10 | 14 | 41 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASP | 9.44 (3) | 12.44 (9) | 11.56 (7) | 13.89 (12) |
| ARP | 8.48 (3) | 13.96 (14) | 12.91 (11) | 16.19 (17) |
| AFP | 7.56 (1) | 18.0 (16) | 11.0 (7) | 18.33 (17) |
| Avg. PFAE | 7.179 (3) | -1.316 (24) | 4.816 (6) | -1.791 (25) |
| cPOMS | 0.982 (2) | 0.974 (18) | 0.977 (11) | 0.9741 (17) |
| SS | 4.68 (4) | -1.95 (15) | 0.69 (12) | -4.3 (20) |
2022 Overall
| Stat | 4 | 10 | 14 | 41 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASP | 17.5 (18) | 19.44 (23) | 13.19 (10) | 18.69 (20) |
| ARP | 12.02 (10) | 16.53 (18) | 15.94 (15) | 18.38 (23) |
| AFP | 14.33 (7) | 17.81 (20) | 17.33 (18) | 20.58 (25) |
| Avg. PFAE | 3.916 (1) | 1.599 (10) | -0.916 (28) | -1.88 (29) |
| cPOMS | 0.9763 (10) | 0.9705 (20) | 0.9727 (14) | 0.9695 (23) |
| SS | -0.15 (12) | -4.78 (22) | -1.22 (13) | -5.45 (23) |
Clearly the stats bear out what Childers was saying. The short track sample is small, but you can see the pairs calling out in the tables, and in the full season data Harvick's a step above. It's not clear that there's anything to learn here beyond that. The 4 is coming in different and Harvick is able to drive tremendous results given his equipment, though he's perhaps losing that ability a bit in his final season.
Perhaps all we can say is that if cars within the same team have similar average starts, running positions, and finishes, they're likely on similar setups - as you'd expect. I take this as vindication for PFAE: if cars within the same team are running very similar setups, and one of the drivers of those cars outperforms his average start over a large enough sample, whether by the expected finish for his start or relative to teammates, he's likely a quality driver. Harvick's been showing that for years.