Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin hangs on for third in late-race shuffle
Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin finished third in Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint Cup Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Denny Hamlin had a choice in the final laps as he, Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch and ex-JGR teammate Tony Stewart ran 1-2-3.
Should he help push Busch to a possible victory or go with Stewart, who had the strongest car throughout Saturday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Daytona International Speedway?
“It obviously put me to a decision to help my current teammate or former teammate, so I'm going to help my current teammate,” Hamlin said after finishing third in the Coke Zero 400. “I felt like the best opportunity for our team to win was to stick with the 18 [of Busch] even though I was going to give up the bottom and I knew I was going to give up position to the 48 [of Jimmie Johnson].”
Hamlin did give up position to Johnson, but it wasn’t exactly how he expected. Instead of lining up two-by-two coming to the line, Busch wrecked after contact with Stewart.
“Usually when you lead in the last lap your percentile for winning usually is pretty good,” Hamlin said. “But I'll tell you, those two cars behind [Busch] really got a good suck-up on them coming to the checkered, and it's just like Talladega. When you've got new tires and guys are one blocking and one being aggressive, you're going to have contact, and that's what happened.”
As for the move midway through the race when Hamlin’s tires appeared to go below the yellow line while he passed Kurt Busch – NASCAR did not penalize Hamlin for the move – Hamlin said he would have rather been assessed a penalty than risk a wreck.
“I had a pretty big run going and the 2 [of Busch] saw me coming and went to block,” he said. “…I felt like if they were going to black flag me I would have been OK with that versus causing a wreck.
“But … my left side tires stayed on the yellow line. I'm not sure that they went below it. I think they saw it as more of an evasive move than a move to pass. I think that's probably what their judgment was.”
Hamlin remained sixth in the point standings but now has a comfortable 201-point buffer between himself and 13th-place Mark Martin.
