Denny Hamlin: ‘There were some lucky people’ during race at Texas

Denny Hamlin believes some of his peers during last Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway were a little luckier than good when the checkered flag waved.

During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin explained that while he’s not holding it against them, he believes if you look at the results of the NASCAR Cup Series’ latest race, you’ll know exactly what he’s talking about.

“I mean, you look at the finishing results. There were some lucky people,” Hamlin stated. “There were some people that got lucky, with that last caution. They went long. The caution came out. They got to pit, and it flip-flopped the field.

“The reason that it flip-flopped the field is [Tyler] Reddick got out to such a huge lead during that run, and then I had such a big lead over third. Like, when we pitted. We un-lapped ourselves. The caution comes out. We all — you know, there was about six of us. Maybe less than that, that were on the lead lap, when the caution came out, even though other cars hadn’t pitted. So then all those cars that were just desperate. If you look at half of the top 10, these were cars that were s— all day. They were terrible. And the reason that they decided to stay out is because they had no other choices. They’re like, ‘This is my only chance to get a good finish.’ And they’d lucked into it, because the caution came out.”

Regardless, while Hamlin believes luck plays a big factor in the finishing order of races, you just have to look at the fastest cars all day to see who was the best during last weekend’s trip to Texas. The No. 11 wheelman believes Chase Elliott was a worthy winner, at least.

“It’s yes, luck plays a factor. But if you look at times of the race, the three fastest cars — really the four, the No. 11, the No. 5, the No. 45, and the No. 9 stayed up front, for most of the day, as well. Like they were in the front. And so it wasn’t by luck. Those cars kept driving to the front,” Hamlin delineated. “Now the No. 5, you know had his issues, and then he wasn’t to be seen again. But generally speaking, yes, luck plays a factor. It did. in the finishing order of some of these guys that were running in the 20s all day. Just got lucky with that lap. You know, that green flag caution.

“But, you know, it’s not luck, if you spin out sometimes, because you chose to go up there. Like I did on that last restart. I knew going into turn three, I’m going down back, I said, ‘I’m committing. I’m gonna commit to not lift. I know the chances are, at best 50/50, that my car is gonna stick.’ It hadn’t stuck all day, and I was far less gas entering turn three. So I just knew that if he cleared me, it was over.” 

In the end, Denny Hamlin went for the win, and came up just short. Some of his peers were a little luckier than him on Sunday, but it usually evens itself out in the NASCAR Cup Series over the course of the season.