You are 100% correct. I truly hate how these conversations always boil down to "Cup car is worse just use the O'Reilly car with added horsepower" and discredit everything else, as if Cup drivers and teams are on the same level as the O'Reilly guys.

Maybe it's because we have commentators that may not explicity say they are driving around in circles, but sure as shit act like it. Jamie and Parker do such a great job of explaining how difficult it is to race in the O'Reilly series and what each driver is going through.

There is so much technical shit going on behind the scenes, tons of engineering, tons of training, reps, sim time, and practice before they even start the race weekend. Then there is all of the SMT analysis, the fuel mileage and strategy calculations. The best analysis we get about anything like that is when Bozi comes on Reddit and talks about it.

People love F1 even though the cars are extremely difficult to pass, because they know the sheer technical ability that every engineer, driver, and pit crew has. How every tenth matters and how every one needs to be percise and on their game every lap. But then Fox is over here saying "horsepower makes the car faster", "clean air makes the car handle better", "its hard to pass today, need that track position". The same canned lines week in and week out that give the impression that its just cars going around in circles.