NASCAR champion admits underestimating rivals who 'kicked his butt'

NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Jesse Love has admitted he massively underestimated the task at hand when switching to a new racing series recently.

With his Xfinity Series championship wrapped up at Phoenix in November, Love headed to Australia to race in the Super2 Series at the end of last month - the feeder series to the Supercars championship.

The Menlo Park, California native drove for Image Racing in their No. 53 across two races at the season finale in Adelaide, achieving mixed results.

In race one, Love's outing ended in a non-classification on lap 13 of the scheduled 24, whilst in race two, he finished 14th, climbing seven places during the race.

NASCAR TODAY: Bubba Wallace makes bizarre admission as Denny Hamlin calls out critics

Love: Super2 twice as hard as I anticipated

Speaking on the Door Bumper Clear podcast, the 20-year-old has now admitted he found it much more difficult than he expected it to be.

In fact, he says it was twice as hard as he was anticipating, and in a refreshingly honest admission, admitted his rivals in Australia 'kicked his a**'.

“So I got the opportunity to go run a Super2 car with the V8 Supercar series,” Love explained. “I ran like the Xfinity series of V8 Supercars, like what SVG won of all his races and championships in [the car], I think he did one year in the new car, but for the most part it was all basically the kind of car that I was driving.

“So that was super cool because I got to watch all that stuff growing up and [it was] definitely mind-bending and eye-opening,” Love continued.

“I was okay on speed. But it was just, it was definitely harder than I thought, probably two times as hard as what I thought it was going to be going into it. They definitely kicked my a** for sure.

“I think I finished 14th and I was the biggest mover, so that was something [to] hang my hat on a little bit, but yeah, it was super hard. I felt like the worst guy in Super2 was, on our road course, better than like the fifth-place guy in Xfinity.

“There was not one guy up there that I was like, ‘Oh, this guy sucks’. It was impressive. It was very impressive.”

Love eyeing Supercars return

Despite the challenge, Love is clearly up for it, which he made clear whilst he was still in Australia last month.

Speaking to Supercars in Adelaide, Love admitted: "Absolutely, I want to come back.

"Part of the reason that I've been a little bit frustrated this weekend is I had some expectations, right? And expectations can ruin it, right?

“But, I want to keep doing this so I can get a chance in the main game [Supercars] and really start learning even more. So, it's probably going to take me a couple outings in the Super2 to really get to the level that I want to be at before I come over here.

“Like, I'm very aware of the skill of all these guys and all the drivers and I'm not going to come in and say, ‘Oh, I want to go straight to the main game.’ Like, I understand the level of talent and expertise these guys have is unlike anything I even expected coming into it.

“I thought I knew coming into this event what it was going to be like. And honestly, it's kind of blown my expectations out of the water."