Jesse Love puts finger on 'biggest problem' in NASCAR, hits F1 with major stray
Jesse Love wants more people to have the same mentality he has about NASCAR as he gets ready for the 2026 season. On the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Love revealed what the “biggest problem” NASCAR has right now, and he also took a shot at F1.
“I think that every sport has people with their gripes,” Jesse Love said. “Right now, I hate to see the state that it’s in because it seems like everybody’s wanting to be against it. I’ll probably get flak for saying it, but I do think that’s our biggest problem is that it’s become so not trendy, but popular to be against, A) NASCAR and be against everything that has to do with it. I think that’s the biggest problem. I think what we have right now is actually really great.”
Love continued, “I just got back from Australia, where all the people really enjoyed what they were doing where they were at. I watched the F1 race, which was probably the worst racing I watched all year as far as a product goes, and people seemed to love that. I’m team pro sport, right? I want the sport to be in a really good place.”
Jesse Love is the defending O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion
Fans who are critical of NASCAR likely have an issue with the playoff format. Kyle Larson won the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship but did not win one of the 10 playoff races. Before the start of the 2025 season, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer John Probst said the playoff format will be reconsidered ahead of 2026.
Top 10
- 1Breaking
TJ Finley
To transfer to seventh school
- 2
Dylan Raiola
Plans to enter Transfer Portal
- 3Hot
DJ Lagway
Potential destinations for UF QB
- 4
Sam Leavitt
Early teams to watch for ASU QB
- 5
AP Poll Shakeup
Top 25 sees movement
Get the Daily On3 Newsletter in your inbox every morning
By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.
“I don’t think we want to get in the habit of making small little tweaks every season to the playoffs,” Probst said, per ESPN. “Where we landed was for 2025, not making any changes to the playoffs. Throughout the course of this year, we will get a working group together with some media folks, OEMs, Goodyear, drivers. … We probably talked to most of the folks one-on-one about, ‘where are we at? What are we thinking?'”
Love doesn’t have a big issue with NASCAR’s playoff format because he won the Xfinity Series (now O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) championship this past season. The 20-year-old began the season with a win at Daytona and ended it with a win at the title race at Phoenix.