Denny Hamlin describes how massive NASCAR penalty affects rest of his season
Denny Hamlin knows he has a lot of work to do after being hit with a massive penalty from NASCAR last week. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin talked about how the penalty will affect the rest of his Cup Series season.
“You can look at it and say, ‘Well, it’s just a 10-point penalty,’ but it isn’t. Look where I’m at now. I’m eighth in points. I was battling for the regular season championship, which would have paid 15 points. And now at most, I’m probably going to get three,” Hamlin said.
“Just a huge swing for us. It’s going to be upwards of 16, maybe 17 points that per round we’re going to miss out on. We know that these cut lines come down to the number. Always does. I was up two on Ross [Chastain] going into Martinsville when he rode the wall. So they’re always really really close. The year before that, I think I made it by two points at Martinsville. That was when [Kevin] Harvick kind of hooked I think Kyle Busch at the time.
“It always comes down to just a few points here and there. We’re just going to have to be exceptional and not make any mistakes at all which is very very hard because as good as we’ve been, our results over the last two months have just been atrocious.”
Denny Hamlin’s crew chief shares more on NASCAR penalty
Hamlin and his No. 11 team were issued an L2-level penalty for violating NASCAR’s engine inspection requirements last Thursday. They were docked 75 points and 10 regular season points, and crew chief Chris Gabehart was fined $100,000. Additonally, Hamlin’s win at Bristol no longer counts toward eligibility for the playoffs. He will still compete in the playoffs since he has won two other Cup Series races this year.
“I mean, sure we’re all disappointed, every one of us — TRD, JGR, 11 car, all of our sponsors are really disappointed in the news,” Gabehart told NASCAR.com before the Daytona race. “But context is, at Bristol, we won with this engine. But as some may not realize, for process-savings measures, you run the engines more than once, and the engine was scheduled to run at a later date, and it did. And one thing led to another, and instead of ultimately ending up at NASCAR, it went back home to its home.”
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