Denny Hamlin ended up being the major beneficiary from Bubba Wallace’s contact with Kyle Larson during the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.
The pair tangling and bringing out the yellow allowed Hamlin’s pit crew to get him to the lead, which the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran wouldn’t relinquish over the green-white-checkered restart. All in all, Hamlin captured his second win of the season, when it looked like Martin Truex Jr. had the race in the bag.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, which was obviously a celebratory one following his win at Richmond, Hamlin took some time to explain his thoughts on the incident between Wallace and Larson, adding that he was happy to see his 23XI Racing driver apologize to Larson.
“You kind of look at that accident, and you could see where — now, that was a very vulnerable part of the racetrack, where Larson got really loose off a turn four,” Hamlin started. “You can see, where he got clear Bubba, and then started getting loose, and then checked up and then Bubba was right on him. So it was good to see Bubba come over there and at least apologize to him.
“Whether he’s right or wrong, doesn’t matter. At least you show that like, ‘Hey, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to get into you.’ But Kyle looked like he was pretty happy after the race.”
Larson ended up with a P3 finish on the afternoon, after surviving the spin and making up some ground on the final restart. Meanwhile, Wallace went from a top five to being stuck in the middle of the pack, after his crew had some trouble on pit road.
After the race, there was some debate as to whether a yellow flag even had to come out for Larson, as he got his car moving pretty quickly after the fact. Evidently, Hamlin agrees with NASCAR’s decision to throw the flag, even if he’s a little biased in this situation.
“It had to be called. He was spinning through the infield,” Hamlin added. “He’s heading towards the inside wall. That’s a caution. It had been 15 weeks … 14 or 15 weeks since we’ve had a green-white-checkered. NASCAR was ready. They’re ready for one. Especially at Richmond.
“I mean, it was a track where we all could catch each other, but we all just can’t — no one could pass.”
Regardless, Denny Hamlin believes Bubba Wallace handled the situation well, and Kyle Larson and himself ended up in a better position because of it. It was a good night at Richmond for Hamlin, that’s for sure.
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