Daytona 500 Qualifying: Noah Gragson's time disallowed after he broke new window rule

NASCAR‘s new rule banning drivers from putting their hand in the side window has already claimed a victim. Noah Gragson stuck his hand out of the netting on his car, triggering a disqualification of his time during single-car qualifying on Wednesday night.

As a result, he’ll head to the back of the field for Thursday night’s Duels. Qualifying was midway through the first round on Wednesday at the time of his mistake.

The FS1 broadcast crew caught up with Noah Gragson following his run. He admitted forgetting about the new rule.

“Yeah I completely forgot about that rule. So that one’s on me,” Gragson said. “So, luckily we have the Duels. I feel like, for the Daytona 500, it’s such a long race, you could kinda start wherever. It is what it is. But yeah I feel like an idiot for that, putting my hand up. Oh well, we got a race tomorrow to do. I’m dumb for that.”

NASCAR announced the new rule change banning hands from altering airflow nine days before the Daytona 500. Here is the verbiage of the rule Noah Gragson broke:

“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. Noncompliance will result in loss of Qualifying time,” the change read, per Bob Pockrass.

This change is intended to limit the factors affecting a driver’s time outside of their car performance and skill. With an open window on a race car, a driver can position his hand to affect the aerodynamics of the vehicle.

While this strategy may only affect a driver’s time by hundredths of a second, it can be the difference in a driver’s pole position on race day. For Noah Gragson, it will certainly have quite an impact.

On3’s Grant Grubbs also contributed to this report.