(Video) Denny Hamlin slams Austin Dillon to the gravel at COTA

NASCAR veterans Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon were involved in a significant crash at the Circuit of The Americas.

(Video) Denny Hamlin slams Austin Dillon to the gravel at COTA

Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon (Via IMAGO)

Coming into the NASCAR Cup Series race at COTA, after two chaotic race weekends, the garage was expecting a normal road course race with a handful incidents.  But the race didn’t pan out as many expected, with the aggressive racing style and confusion over track limits producing a wild race for the fans at Austin.

One of the most significant incidents of the day was the crash featuring Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon. Late in the race, the duo caused a caution call after the No:11 Toyota Camry slammed on to the No:3 Chevy, sending the latter to the gravel, resulting in a DNF for the ex-Xfinity Series champion.

The incident reduced Dillon’s finish to just a P35 while Hamlin secured a P21 finish. In his post-race interview the former called out the 23XI Racing co-owner for his involvement in the incident. He pointed out that they were comfortably running inside the top-20 before the poor decision making from Hamlin.

FS Video

With 18 laps to go, we were running inside the top 20, and the No. 11 locked up his front tires and wiped us out. My team did a great job trying to make the repairs, but the damage in the rear was too much to fix and we had to go to the garage.

Austin Dillon said after the race.

Austin Dillon is bummed for RCR over the result

In the same interview, Dillon also shared his feelings about the how bummed he is about missing out on a solid finish on Sunday. He believes he had a strong car which was capable of securing a top-15 finish on the day.

Austin Dillon
Austin Dillon (Via IMAGO)

We had an up and down day at the Circuit of The Americas …We played strategy and pitted early in both stages for better track position at the start of the next. Our car handled well, and we were just trying to be patient until the end… Bummed for our Richard Childress Racing team. I felt like we had a top-15 car, and it sucks we didn’t get to show it today. On to Phoenix next week.

Austin Dillon said.

The two times Xfinity Series champion now has to shift his focus to next-weekends race at Phoenix, which will be the first regular oval track race of the season. It would be interesting to see how he will perform next Sunday.