That single trip down pit road haunts Denny Hamlin now. The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota admitted on his podcast that a crucial lack of awareness completely altered his race at the South Point 400. Hamlin finished 16th in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race after a costly spin and subsequent damage, but it was a pit-road misplay that truly let his title rival slip away.
Here is the core of the disaster: Kyle Larson, driving the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports machine, had plummeted eight spots early on and fallen a lap down after a lengthy 26-second stop for major adjustments directed by crew chief Cliff Daniels. But when the first caution flew for Zane Smith spinning in Turn 4, Hamlin surrendered the lead to pit for right-side tires. Because Hamlin was the only lead-lap car ahead of Larson, that routine service allowed the defending series champion to take the wave around and get his lap back.
I knew that it wasn't just traffic. We had a major problem with the car,
Larson capitalized massively, fighting back to second place and extending his series lead with 36 points on the afternoon. Hamlin was blunt about what he would have done differently.
"Had I known that Larson was a lap down and he would have got his lap back by me pitting, I would have never turned down pit road. I don't care what the crew chief says. I would have never turned down pit road," Hamlin said.
Yet the Joe Gibbs Racing star refused to throw his pit box under the bus for missing the big picture, noting that his team was trapped inside the racing bubble and focused entirely on his machine's feedback rather than monitoring the competition on television. Hamlin himself had fired off to the dominant start of the day, pacing the opening 34 laps after claiming the Busch Light Pole Award on Saturday.
Unfortunately, the afternoon quickly unraveled. Restarting ninth after the caution, Hamlin charged back to third while Chase Briscoe controlled the race. Pressing hard for stage points with just three laps left in the frame, his Toyota snapped around in Turns 3 and 4. Though he initially believed the car escaped unscathed after sliding over the apron, a major problem was lurking.
"I knew that it wasn't just traffic. We had a major problem with the car," Hamlin said of the damage discovered on both ends of the machine, which destroyed its race-winning potential. He still felt he had a fast beast before that incident, maintaining that no one was going to run with him.
He clawed his way back to 11th before the final-stage re-fire, but a brief fuel-pickup issue just before the green flag dropped him outside the top 20. Hamlin salvaged a 16th-place finish and 22 points, marking his fourth finish of eight or worse in five Chase races. He lost 14 points to Larson, pushing his championship deficit to minus 40 as the series heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway this Sunday.
