“There is a Little History!” NASCAR Insider Details Intriguing Reason Behind Denny Hamlin-Michael McDowell Drama at Darlington

Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin came to the NASCAR Cup race on Sunday as the number one seed, following regular season championship win, hoping to start a strong start to the chase. He has some hood moments, with P3 finishes in the first two stages. But things went south for him in the final stage, while teammate Christopher Bell secured the win.

A poor late pit-stop saw him get caught up among the midfield drivers and was involved in a dramatic incident with Michael McDowell that dropped him further down the order. The incident bent his tow link, but the No:11 driver was able to climb back from outside the top-30 to secure a P18 finish. Talking about it Hamlin admitted that at that moment he didn’t get the break he should’ve gotten from the Chevy driver.

Yeah, he was struggling on the restart. It looked like he was really tight. Went in there, slid him. But I didn’t check up a lot. I did check up some, and I just didn’t get cut a break there.

Denny Hamlin said post-race.

Senior NASCAR journalist Jordan Bianchi shared his thoughts on the incident and highlighted that the on-going Chris Gabehart lawsuit might’ve played a key role in it. He highlighted that There is beef between the spire driver and Denny Hamlin, whose ex-crew chief now works with the Chevy team following a controversial move.

There is a little history there. I mean, you’re forgetting a little thing called the lawsuit. I mean, maybe this was for Gabehart. Maybe this was for hey dragging us into court, you know. This is for the lawyers out there.

Jordan Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast.

Denny Hamlin still has confidence on his side for the chase

After the race, JGR veteran Denny Hamlin shared his thoughts on how good he was on Sunday and how losing 12 points from his lead affects him. The veteran admitted that he was really not happy with not being able to find the real long-run pace of his car, owing to the incident.

Certainly not the finish we were hoping for. Good first couple of stages. Just got to where our car was actually the best right before that wreck in stage three. We certainly made gains on it all day. It was really good in the short run, we got it really good in the long run by the time that third stage came, but never got to see it through.

Denny Hamlin said.

Further talking about the point, he shared his expectations for the remaining nine races of the season and his championship aspiration. He is determined to execute his race better next week, compared to what happened this Sunday.

We’re still leading. We’ve just got to go to the next race track and execute at a high level. It starts in practice. We’ll do our best to execute a much better day next week than we did this week.

Denny Hamlin added.

The comments from the veteran racer are on point and shows how he is still confident about his championship chances, despite the tough start. It would be interesting to see how everything is going to playout for the star driver in the coming days.

Also Read: Denny Hamlin Brands Spire Motorsports “Unserious” after Carson Hocevar’s Darlington Wreck