While there has been SIGNIFICANT improvements coming from FM7 in terms of the way cars slipstream up to the car ahead, the new model tends to fall short in other areas.
(For reference, this will use the NASCAR cup cars from FM7 and the Oldsmobile Cutlass GTX from FM. Which is the most predominantly used NASCAR equivalent in most FM community leagues, though the principal applies to just about all cars in game)
To be more specific, in the previous instalment if you were to sit directly behind the car ahead, you were able to push (both with the air and with the physical bumper) the front car to a higher speed to a varying degree depending on if it was a physical or aero push.
But now with the new draft model, aero pushing the lead car doesn’t seem to exist and physically pushing the lead car nets maybe 1 or 2 mph boost momentarily to the lead car before it slows back down again. This is at primary detriment to the community NASCAR leagues, most particularly at Daytona (though Id imagine Sunset which is coming very soon will suffer a similar problem), where drivers are essentially forced into two or three wide grid lock as the lead cars of each line can’t clear each other.
Ideally, any changes/fixes would involve keeping the current model as is currently, perhaps with a slight nerf to the side draft effect, and incorporating a marginal drag decrease to the lead car once the trailing car is within a certain distance. Say 20-25 feet from the back of the lead car. (Or if somehow this effect does exist in game, perhaps consider increasing the effect so that it’s actually noticable.)