Denny Hamlin isn’t pointing fingers, however he’s additionally not pretending the ending at Kansas didn’t sting. After watching a near-certain win slip away, Hamlin took a measured strategy when evaluating the late warning that modified the whole lot.
Talking on Actions Detrimental, the veteran driver acknowledged the grey space NASCAR officers have been coping with in actual time when it got here to Cody Ware’s spin: “It was a warning,” Hamlin stated. “Trying again on it, may the warning have been held? Sure. Ought to it? In all probability not.”
Alas, that honesty stands proud, particularly contemplating what was at stake. With two laps to go at Kansas, Hamlin was closing in on the white flag because the race chief. Then got here the spin from Ware, who was working a number of laps down.
The warning flag flew, sending the race into time beyond regulation and wiping out Hamlin’s benefit. Moments later, Tyler Reddick capitalized, surging to the win whereas Hamlin light to fourth.
From Hamlin’s perspective, the choice in the end got here all the way down to security: “Once I glided by him, there was nonetheless lots of smoke to the place I couldn’t even see him,” he defined. “I didn’t know whether or not he was going up the monitor, down the monitor. I didn’t know.”
That uncertainty is strictly why NASCAR threw the warning, even when it drastically altered the end result. Whereas there was debate this season about officers holding cautions in sure conditions, Hamlin admitted this one doubtless crossed the edge.
“A automotive spinning in the course of the racetrack, often, that’s a warning,” he stated. “I believe he was on the racetrack for sufficient time to the place they weren’t going to simply sit there and watch for any person to hit him.”
Nonetheless, the frustration doesn’t simply stem from the decision itself. Hamlin additionally pointed to the circumstances main as much as the incident, inserting accountability on Ware’s group for leaving him on worn tires deep into an extended green-flag run.
“The group put him in a no-win scenario,” Hamlin stated, noting the danger of working 60-plus laps on a single set. All of it provides as much as one other “what may have been” second in a season that’s had a couple of too a lot of them.
Hamlin has now seen a number of races slip away late, whether or not resulting from mechanical points or circumstances past his management. And along with his profession window narrowing, he’s hinted 2027 might be his remaining season, every missed alternative carries added weight.
At Kansas, he had the pace. He had the monitor place. He had the race in hand. However in NASCAR, typically that also isn’t sufficient.
