EuroNASCAR’s Sporting Director Joe Balash revealed key advantages of the sequential gearbox that Samsonas Motorsport will provide to all GEN3 cars for the 2025 season.
NASCAR Euro Series is set to mandate the usage of sequential gearboxes in 2025, as revealed in the announcement that EuroNASCAR and gearbox supplier Samsonas Motorsport made during the 2024 Professional MotorSport World Expo in Köln, Germany.
The news marked a groundbreaking change as the series will move away from the 4-speed H-pattern manual gearbox that was seen by racing enthusiasts in Europe as a big selling point for EuroNASCAR.
In an interview with André Wiegold, EuroNASCAR’s Sporting and Technical Director Joe Balash revealed that the decision to go with sequentials was done to keep the operation costs low for the teams participating.
“For the 2025 season, the new evolution of the car will use the sequential transmission,” said Balash in the interview, posted on EuroNASCAR’s YouTube channel.
“We’ve been testing this gearbox a number of times this year, we’ve had it in competition at one of our events and we’ve come up with a great alternative to what we had in the past.”
“The difference between having an H-pattern and going straight forward or straight back, going up or down through the gears, is that it’ll help our teams with maintenance costs.”
“Unfortunately from time to time with an H-pattern shifter, there’s the ‘lost shift’ where you put it in the wrong gear and it hurts the internal components, you don’t have that with this type of mechanism with a sequential shifter.”
EuroNASCAR understands that usage of sequential gearboxes will bring fundamental changes to how teams and drivers approach races, the details of which is something that Balash was able to share
“We’ve tested different gear ratios in our different tests to make sure we optimize where the gears are in all five of the speeds going forward,” added Balash.
“What we’re seeing is that the teams will shift into fifth gear at about the same time they shifted into fourth gear [in the manual], so the high-end will be about the same.”
“But, when you’re in the more technical parts of the race, the drivers will have options. Some may choose second, but a different driver may choose third. At longer sweeping curves, your choice is between third and fourth.”
“It gives the drivers more tools in their toolbox and more options on how they shift the car and use the different RPMs and torques for the way they race.”
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Last Updated: 26 November 2024