Denny Hamlin says P19 finish at Indianapolis Road Course ‘feels like a win’

Denny Hamlin doesn’t want to get used to finishing P19, but he’ll take it following the Indianapolis Road Course.

The NASCAR veteran has never been revered for his road course skills, but he’s held his own over recent seasons. Still, he knew it’d be tough to compete with some of the top at the medium on Sunday, so he was happy to take what he could get and move forward in the season.

“I was never so pleased to run P19 as I was yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy to run P19,” said Hamlin, via his Actions Detrimental podcast. “Now, I hate it because I feel like I’m better than that. You know, I should run wherever the No. 45 is. That’s kind of my line. Wherever he’s at, that’s what my car is capable of doing, on the road courses. But we saw that we didn’t have the speed. The team said, ‘How can we get out of here with the most points possible?’ You know, if we finish P27, and really risk it to try and win a stage, well who cares? We’re going to finish P18, P16 anyways. And for us, we’re only racing the No. 19 car from here until the playoffs start, for the regular season championship.

“So I mean, [Martin] Truex Jr., I never saw him all day. And we finished two points behind him on the weekend. So it’s like, (Crew Chief) Chris [Gabehart] and the team just did a fabulous job of getting us that stage win. Again, we just went long, and didn’t pit until the end of the second stage. I thought I was just battling.”

Now although Hamlin was back in P19, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have to fight for it. The NBC cameras might’ve missed it, but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver and Brad Keselowski fought for that spot throughout the race.

“Now listen, if they had a camera on P19, me and Brad Keselowski fought all day long. We never were separated more than five car lengths,” said Hamlin. “Whoever would get in-front failed to pull away. It was just, the next person — we clearly needed rabbits, to be fast. And I looked at the lap times after the race, I’m looking and I’m seeing, I’m like, ‘Man, my car is capable, because I dropped down and ran some really good laps.’ But it just tells you how much I have to work at my craft, to bring those high laps down.

“So my car is clearly capable, but me and Brad had a hell of a battle for two hours and nine minutes. We must’ve exchanged positions five or six times. So it was a hell of a battle.”

Nevertheless, it’s been a great season for Denny Hamlin thus far, and he can afford a P19 run for at least one week. He doesn’t want to get used to running in the middle of the pack though.

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