Denny Hamlin speculates on what caused several early cautions at Sonoma

Denny Hamlin just shared his thoughts on what caused multiple cautions at the NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma on Sunday. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin believed it was a combination of things that caused drivers to get into wrecks in the first two stages of the race.

“Don’t know what you can really attribute that to other than cold tires, the racetrack got faster as the day went on, it started to get some heat in it,” Hamlin said. Maybe just cold tires, cold track and people trying to get after it.

“In practice, we all give each other quite of bit of space and we space each other out to try to get clean runs and you have time to let your car come in. When you’re firing off on a track, a new pave especially, we’ve seen this with the ovals for many decades that new repaves are always treacherous because the tires are usually so hard that it takes time to build heat in them and for them get some pace. I think it’s just people slipping up there and there because of the conditions and what we’ve had in the past.”

There were seven cautions before the race’s halfway point. According to NASCAR, the seven yellow flags on Sunday were more than the previous two Sonoma Races had combined. But the final 51 laps of the race were caution-free, and Kyle Larson got the win.

Denny Hamlin explains his engine failure at Sonoma

Hamlin was one of the drivers that caused a caution as his engine failed after two laps. On the podcast, Hamlin explained what could have caused the engine failure. “I drove for exactly two laps and then we blew up,” Hamlin said. “I don’t know exactly what it was still. It seemed like something in the bottom end. Christopher Bell’s last weekend was like a valve spring, so something on the top end. Ours grenaded something on the bottom. …It ain’t going anywhere else because it is destroyed.”

Hamlin came into Sunday with five consecutive top-five finishes and first place in the Cup Series standings. But with him getting a DNF on Sunday, Hamlin is now third in the standings behind Larson and Chase Elliott. Hamlin has had a lot of success in NASCAR, winning 54 races and earning 348 top-10 finishes in 665 starts. But the 43-year-old is still looking to win his first Cup Series championship.

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