Denny Hamlin evaluates his Crayon 301 performance at New Hampshire: ‘Very frustrating’

Denny Hamlin came away very frustrated with his performance in Monday’s Crayon 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Hamlin, who raced his way to a P7 finish, said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast Tuesday that it came down to his No. 11 Toyota not being fast enough all weekend.

“On the 11 car, we just weren’t fast,” Hamlin said. “I couldn’t run a fast lap in practice. I couldn’t run a fast lap in qualifying… Certainly struggled on restarts, which is supposed to be your fast laps. So I don’t know, it’s just very frustrating for sure. I was losing my mind in there. I was really loose at one time.

“… So you know, I mean I thought that we had a good car in the long run, but we just — I don’t know, we just got off there somewhere. I didn’t do a very good job either, of executing. Over-driving corners left and right. Getting hung on seams left and right.”

While he wasn’t pleased necessarily with the outcome, Hamlin’s run in the Crayon 301 saw him catapult to fourth in the points standings with six races remaining before the Cup Series playoffs begin in September. Hamlin said that while his car was sideways for much of the beginning portion of the race, it got better as the race went on.

“I was thinking when we went there that oh, man. Goodyear said they brought a tire that’s got more grip,” Hamlin said. “So we’re going to be faster on the short run. We’re going to be slower on the long run. And it was like oh, man, I can’t touch the gas from Lap 1. Like it’s just sideways and really, the more laps I ran, the better it got.”

Denny Hamlin says Martin Truex Jr ‘kicked our teeth in’ at New Hampshire

One driver who didn’t have problems at New Hampshire was Martin Truex Jr., who led 254-of-301 laps en route to picking up his third victory of the season. Hamlin admitted the 2017 Cup Series champion “kicked our teeth in” with his dominating performance.

“The Cup race, man oh man, Martin Truex just, kicked our teeth in,” Hamlin said. “… Martin Truex victories usually aren’t very exciting ones, because when he wins, he wins big. He’s a ten-run baseball game. He’s a three-touchdown football game. Just — it was right from the first lap of practice, he just had the field covered.”

He added: “He’s really, really good. Really good. And when they hit on it, I mean, we know what they have in their car, right? I mean, we — we drive differently, so it’s very hard to just cut and paste and say, ‘Well surely if I ran exactly what he did, I’d have the same result,’ I wouldn’t, first of all.

“But man, they just — I don’t know. It’s like, when he has speed in practice, you can just count on him leading 200 laps, wherever we’re at. Like it’s just, when they unload fast, they’re fast the whole weekend, and I really can’t tell you why, that when they win it’s so dominating. But it is. Like there’s not many like, he wins on the last, you know, late race restart. … If I knew the answer, then I’d do it.”

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