Denny Hamlin lamented a promising run that was marred by a restart stack-up at Sonoma Raceway. Carson Hocevar spun out Hamlin and took him out of top-10 contention.
Nine laps into the final stage, Hamlin was running sixth when Hocevar made contact with his rear bumper. Brad Keselowski was also involved in the stack up and pushed Hocevar from behind.
Hamlin spun around and faced a slew of oncoming cars that passed him by. He ultimately ended up 26th, while Hocevar finished 11th.
“It’s frustrating for sure,” remarked Hamlin in a post-race interview. (via X/JEff Gluck)
Denny Hamlin also revealed that another car clipped his front and knocked off his splitter after the spin.
“Thought we were really doing a good job of, you know, having a good car. I didn’t have great restarts. I’d lose one spot here and there, but we were a top-five car on speed. Obviously, once we got to the back, the nose got damaged so much that it just took all the downforce all from it,” Denny Hamlin added.
Denny Hamlin wound up atop the points standings after Tyler Reddick finished dead last. With eight races left in the regular season, Hamlin now stands one point ahead of the 23XI driver.
The JGR ace also beat his In-Season Challenge rival, Ty Dillon. Notably, the two drivers had the same match-up in last year’s edition, where Dillon pulled off a surprise win and reached the Champions Round at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Next weekend, Hamlin will face fellow first-round winner Erik Jones at Chicagoland Speedway.
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Carson Hocevar apologises for taking out Denny Hamlin
Carson Hocevar shared an honest assessment of his contact with Denny Hamlin. The Spire driver explained how he didn’t mean to cause the spin, but apologised nonetheless.
“I was watching my mirror the whole time, and I look up and I wasn’t even seeing that I was hitting Denny. I was avoiding trying to knock my front end off when he was spinning. So I was happy to hear that I wasn’t the difference maker of Ty beating Denny because I think I would be looked at for sports fixing probably the way I was you know singing Ty’s praises. But ultimately apologize to obviously them. I wasn’t trying to spin them,” he said via NBC sports.
Denny Hamlin’s teammate, Chase Briscoe, finished runner-up for a second straight race at Sonoma. He almost passed the race favorite Shane van Gisbergen, but had a minor error with four laps remaining and lost momentum.
SVG won the 110-lapper with a 74-lap lead, finishing 0.357 seconds ahead of Briscoe. The Trackhouse driver took home a 63-point haul to land inside the Chase cutoff. Notably, he flipped both stages and still managed stage points.
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