In what was a roller coaster weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin and his crew chief, Chris Gayle, were able to claw their way from the 39th starting spot to nab a solid third-place result in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 — a race won by 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace.
Race Results: NASCAR Cup Series Brickyard 400
Hamlin’s 11th top-five finish of the season allowed Hamlin to end his roller coaster weekend on a high note.
The driver kicked the weekend off by setting the fastest lap time in Saturday’s practice session, which had everyone expecting the 44-year-old to have a fighting chance to collect his first career win in the Brickyard 400, which would allow him to become the fifth driver to ever collect the NASCAR Cup Series career Grand Slam (Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 500, Brickyard 400, and Southern 500).
Then, it all came undone in qualifying as Hamlin got tight in Turn 2 on his lap, slammed into the Turn 2 wall, and spun head-first into the inside SAFER Barrier, which destroyed his primary race car, and forced the Joe Gibbs Racing team to put all hands on deck to prepare Hamlin’s backup race car.
Hamlin would have to start Sunday’s Crown Jewel event from the 39th and final spot on the starting grid, and in an unproven and untested race car. It was no problem for the cagey veteran as Hamlin climbed through the running order all race long, and Gayle utilized strategic calls to put Hamlin in a position to contend for the win.
After climbing from the car, Hamlin was proud as punch for the fight shown by his Joe Gibbs Racing team, as well as his 23XI Racing team, which won the race with its driver, Bubba Wallace.
“Little bit of both,” Hamlin said when asked if he was celebrating the day as a driver or team owner. “I mean, great day for our whole Progressive Toyota team. I have to say thank you to everybody at JGR, all four teams, for chipping in yesterday. 23XI Racing for wrapping the car yesterday. Just a huge team effort. I’ve never seen so many people come together to get this car together. It needed a lot of work. And they gave me something I could contend with.”
While it was another near-miss for Hamlin in the Brickyard 400, a race that has eluded him in 17 attempts, the driver was all smiles with the speed he had in his race car.
“There’s not a whole lot I could complain with,” Hamlin explained. “I think we set the fastest lap again on the last lap, there. So, I mean, the car was capable. We just needed a little bit of track position. We needed to take a little bit of extra fuel on that last stop because, as Steve Letarte would say, we had to pay that fuel tax at some point. So, you know, all we needed was me to not mess up yesterday, have a little better track position, give us some more options when it comes to fuel, and we would have had a winner. Either way, I guess I’m going to be kissing the bricks, I’ll just be doing it in street clothes rather than a driver suit.”
With the third-place run, Hamlin has closed to within 20 points of Chase Elliott, who holds the NASCAR Cup Series Regular-Season championship lead with four races remaining before the Playoffs begin.
Last week, Hamlin signed a multi-year contract extension to remain as the full-time driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for two more seasons, which means the future NASCAR Hall of Famer will have at least two more chances to reach victory lane as a driver in the Brickyard 400.
