Denny Hamlin Laments “Unfortunate” Bristol Result as Kyle Larson Steals Championship Lead

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin was leading the championship table since race week 18, after he took the lead from Tyler Reddick till last weekend. Kyle Larson produced another solid run in the chase and is now the new table topper with a single point lead. The 25 points advantage the JGR driver had at the start of the final round has now become obsolete.

Bristol night race winner Joey Logano has also closed the gap, as he is just 16 points behind the leader. He has had fast cars in every week since the start of the last round, but has been average with the results. Talking about Bristol, the veteran admitted that not securing enough stage points was the determining factor this time.

We just have to get to running a little bit better. Today, I thought early on – in the first stage – I really liked my National Debt Relief Toyota. I thought we had a car that would contend for the win, and then second stage, when we took the stage points in stage one that put us to the back…

Denny Hamlin said post-race.

The No:11 team was pretty good when it to comes to getting the track positions back but hasn’t been able to find the same pace over the last month. Bad luck has played a key role in the poor results and Denny Hamlin is determined to get over it, in order to get back to winning ways on the way to winning his maiden championship.

And once we lost track position, it just wasn’t quite as good. I think the track changed on us as well. Then we got caught by that caution, so that was unfortunate. It is the way it is, but we move on.

Denny Hamlin added via motorsport.com.

Kyle Larson explains what he needs to do to keep Denny Hamlin behind

The defending champion Kyle Larson talked about the leading table and admitted that it’s too early for him to find any comfort about his position. They need to consistently finish inside the top 5 in the coming weeks to remain among the contenders.

I mean, it’s good (for us to take the points), but there’s still so much racing left. Just got to keep having good consistent days. It’s three top 5s to open the Chase and looks like leading the points now by just a point.

Kyle Larson said.

Further talking abut the point, he highlighted how though some of the upcoming tracks are good for the Chevy’s, the Toyota’s got more with the likes of Kansas and Vegas. So, with a couple of weeks the whole points table can change entirely.  

But we’re going to some good tracks for us but also good tracks for the Toyotas are Vegas and Kansas, Charlotte. It could easily change a lot here in the next upcoming weeks. But we’ve just got to be ready for anything and keep plugging away.

Kyle Larson added.

The comments from the champion driver are on point and shows how no one should give up hope on Hamlin’s chances, as with the right car he would easily get back to winning ways. It would be interesting to see how everything is going to playout for the No:11 driver in the coming race days.

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