The chart may be yellow, but fans are seeing nothing but red. NASCAR thought it had seen backlash before at the infamous All-Star race. Ever since the promoters’ caution, the community has been on high alert. They torched it as staged and unnecessary. Drivers weren’t quiet either. Joey Logano flat-out called it a “gimmick” and was convinced the made-for-TV caution robbed him of the win. And now, with the new data showing just how bloated caution time has become, fans aren’t holding back.

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season logged just under 117 hours of total racing, yet the sport spent an eye-opening 40 hours under caution. Daniel Cespedes took matters into his own hands in logging the data and punching the numbers. And it isn’t looking good.

A ‘caution’ary tale for NASCAR

The chart illustrates how widespread the issue was across the schedule. Race after race hovered near or above the one-third mark, with the worst offender topping 52.2% at Texas. Even the cleaners rarely dipped below the dotted 30% line, and only one race, the Charlotte Roval, managed to stay at a comparatively low 17.1%. Taken together, the season total bar on the left set the tone. 2025 was dominated by yellow flag laps.

When placed in the context of recent years, the trend becomes even clearer. Since 2022, NASCAR has struggled to shrink the share of caution-filled laps. 34.9% in 2022, followed by 30.8% the next year and 32.3% last year. While 2025 wasn’t the worst of the bunch, the chart shows that cautions remain a persistent part of racing, constantly eating up roughly a third of every season.

The spread of bars across the calendar review shows this isn’t a problem tied down to one track type or one part of the schedule; it’s hinting at NASCAR’s season-long patterns, and the fans and teams are increasingly taking notice.

Thanks to the Internet Pandit, Building Speed, and the data retrieved at the beginning of April and updated in May, this discrepancy is shown. The percentage of laps run under caution in 2025 sat at 17.4%, the highest since 2001, although that number has dropped from 20.1% after the first seven races.

A major factor could simply be the sheer amount of caution this season. The Phoenix race at the beginning of the season saw more than five Stage 1 cautions for the first time since 2011. But the spikes in caution are different from caution length, and in 2025, those lengths are quietly increasing. They have decreased for spins, debris, and tire issues yet have grown for accidents, real problems, and especially stage and caution, the latter showing the biggest bump by an average of 1.47 laps per stage.

Not just NASCAR fans, but drivers have also been infuriated by it. The 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Brad Keselowski, hasn’t held back in criticizing NASCAR for what he believes is inconsistent caution flag officiating. After the Goodyear 400 at Darlington, he took to social media to express frustration over what he called clear double standards and how and when NASCAR chooses to throw a yellow.

The issue boiled over in stage two when a loose wheel sent Brad Keselowski spinning and left him with a flat tire. Despite the safety risk, NASCAR waited several laps to throw the caution, only doing so after he had already limped to the pit. The delayed call buried him three laps down, ultimately leading to a finish outside the top 30.

Earlier this year, NASCAR allowed a late race to finish at Daytona without throwing a yellow, but in a nearly identical situation at Atlanta, the flag came out instantly. Fans and competitors alike have been left wondering what exactly the standard is. Keselowski summed up his anger bluntly: “It doesn’t bother me when yellows don’t get thrown for me or I get penalties that are questionable. IT MAKES ME MAD AS HELL when it’s not the same for others, which has been the case too many times over the last few years.”

NASCAR Senior VP of Competition Elton Sawyer has defended race control’s decision before, pointing to the need to juggle “entertainment, competition, and the safety element.” But the explanation hasn’t eased concerns for anyone in the NASCAR community. And after these stats, the fans only see red.

Fans slam NASCAR after seeing caution-filled 2025 data

NASCAR fans have been sounding the alarm for months, but the latest caution-heavy races have pushed the frustration into overdrive. Taking to Reddit, one fan summed it up bluntly, saying, “NASCAR loves the dumba*s 1 lap restarts to end stages too much to do this.” Another echoed the same sentiments, arguing that never-ending showdowns are actively hurting the product, adding, “100%. NASCAR keeps wondering why they can’t get eyes to stay on their broadcasts, and the cautions (and commercials) are a huge part of it. It gets exhausting even for me, and I’m a diehard motorsports fan.”

Even the broadcast format is catching heat, with one viewer adding, “And they still have the audacity to have green flag commercials.” For many, the frustration is just about the aesthetics; they believe these gimmicks directly affect the integrity of the racing product. That anger hit a peak when one fan pointed to the 2025 championship outcome, where Kyle Larson clinched his second title by finishing third, thanks to a late race caution. They chimed in with, “Not to sound bitter but we literally had a champion crowned by 2 laps… This s*it is cooked. Burnt to a crisp in fact.”

Others pointed to the absurd length of some yellow flag stocks, like the viewer who highlighted Talladega in a famously long pause, saying, “Yeah I mean a stage break caution took 8 laps at Talladega. That was like 25 minutes. Why would that need to happen?” To them, NASCAR’s obsession with format manipulation and TV-friendly restarts has crossed the line.

And with all this mounting frustration, some fans believe they’re simply done watching races in real time. Once some of the exhaustion subsided, a fan wrote, “I don’t think I’ll ever watch a NASCAR race live again. It’s insufferable. The cautions, the stalling, the talking heads, more cautions, stage breaks, stalling, talking. Just download the race after, skip all the bulls*it, play it at 1.15x and you’ll have the standard race done in 2 hours-ish.” Together, these reactions paint a clear picture. Fans aren’t just annoyed; they are losing patience, and for some, they are walking away.