Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin has admitted that he could have handled the situation differently at Kansas Speedway last weekend, when he made contact with Bubba Wallace on the last lap. The incident compromised their chances of winning the race as Chase Elliott capitalized on the situation and secured victory.
Hamlin is the co-owner of Wallace’s team, 23XI Racing. With the playoff battle heating up, Hamlin was eager to win the race to the point where he didn’t mind racing so hard with Wallace. Unfortunately for him, the contact with Wallace slowed them both down, offering Elliott the big chance of overtaking them.
Hamlin led the race for 159 laps, and it looked like the win was his. But the incident led him to realize later that maybe he could have done things differently for a better outcome. Speaking on his Actions Detrimental podcast, he said:
“I can analyze this now. I have about a second to analyze this as I’m going down the backstretch. As a driver, what I’m trying to do is figure out angles. What angle am I going to take this corner, where is the guy beside me — all those things play a factor in how deep you can drive into a corner or how shallow you need to be or whatever.
“So, now that I can analyze this more out of the car and look at this more, again, while I’m in this car, in this cocoon going into Turn 3, I don’t even see the 23. I don’t know how close he is, I don’t know if he’s a car width up, is he right on my door. Those are all factors in how your car is going to take the next corner. And so, there are things I would do differently, no doubt about it.”
Hamlin made it clear that he was not going to apologize to Wallace for racing hard. Explaining the incident from his perspective, he added:
“Had I seen what I see now, no question I would have backed off early because I would have thought, ‘You know what, he’s probably going to overdrive the corner, and I’ll just get back by him on the exit.’ But man, that’s Monday morning quarterbacking. There’s no way in that split second decision, I don’t know that he’s right there and I have no gap between our cars. Had I known we had no gap between our cars, I would have known my car is about go straight, but I had no way of knowing that.
“I had no way to know, so I entered the corner the same amount to the same point I always let off, and my car went dead straight. And it’s because of the aero situation I was in. I was closer to the 23 than I had budgeted for. Unfortunately, it took us both up the track, I took him up the track, he bounced off the wall, I slowed down enough that we gave the 9 car the win. But that is racing, and I’m not gonna apologize for trying to win the race that the 11 car was the most deserving car to win that race, without a doubt.”
