By alley - Jun 12, 2016, 7:54 PM ET

NASCAR: Mixed views on Michigan regs

The most recent NASCAR competition direction is still a work in progress following the use of an experimental reduced downforce package on Sunday in the Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

It needs some more work but it's trending in the right direction.

The intended result was to drop expected downforce levels to around 1,500 pounds and decrease sideforce by 100 pounds. Downforce is the pressure created across the surface of a moving vehicle while sideforce is generated by the flow of air along the sides of it. Cars were sliding around on Sunday and restarts were delicate, but the garage says it's way too soon to decide if the changes were ultimately a success.

Carl Edwards (left), long an advocate for reducing downforce, finished seventh but said the sport needs to go further in this direction.

"This is a work in progress," Edwards said. "I applaud NASCAR for taking downforce away and the speeds are still so high because the surface is good and the Goodyear tires are good and everybody is working hard on their cars. But if they just keep working in this direction, we're going to keep having better and better races."

His Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin believes NASCAR worked so much on reducing rear downforce for this weekend that it actually needs to take more away from the front of the cars to create more passing.

"I think overall we've got something good here that is fun," Hamlin said. "Track position is a bear out there and every driver is going to talk about that, but it's not because of the wake. There's something with this left side tire that is very, very hard which makes it difficult and the tires aren't slowing up as much as we've seen in the past.

"So I think those two combinations is making it tough to pass. Overall, I'm happy with the direction."

To the contrary, three-time champion Tony Stewart believes Goodyear is actually ahead of the sanctioning body and said Sunday was the closest the sport has been to having both aspects of the on-track product – tires and aero – begin to align.

"I love it absolutely love it," Stewart said. "The package is good. The aero package is starting to catch up now. The whole equation to this to make it all where everybody wants it to be are tires and aero. And up to this point Goodyear has been way ahead of NASCAR.

"NASCAR is finally catching up, so now we are getting the split between the two groups closed up. The good thing is Goodyear is primed and ready to do all the stuff they need to do. They've been waiting on NASCAR. It's coming around. It's going to get back to where, you know, today we got to drive the cars."

The most negative critique came from Brad Keselowski, who said NASCAR effectively reduced downforce but not sideforce and drag.

"I think it's important to remember that these racecars have three dimensions to them – downforce, sideforce and drag and this is only a downforce reduction," Keselowski explained. "It's a big chunk but I think we probably should think about the sideforce now a little bit because that hasn't been tuned down at all.

"A lot of smart people will go back to the board and try to learn from today. I think it's an improvement but not the step we were looking for."