Last weekend Shane van Gisbergen picked up the first win of his NASCAR Xfinity Series career and Denny Hamlin was impressed. It also gave Hamlin a moment to talk about how difficult things are on a road course, especially with someone as talented as SVG racing you.
Denny Hamlin won a few pole awards on road courses last season. That includes the Chicago Street Course. However, he has issues remaining consistent throughout an entire race.
While he has made strides in his road course racecraft, Hamlin still struggles. He saw what SVG did to Justin Allgaier at Portland to take the win and explained just how hard it is to fend off a driver with that much skill.
“Yeah you can’t make any mistakes against someone who grew up doing road course racing,” Hamlin said on Actions Detrimental. “Because they’re always trying to set up the next corner and you as the leader, you’re trying, it’s a tough position at times to be the leader because you’re trying not to make a mistake to make the overtake easier than what it, you know, should be. You want to make them earn it.”
Aero-blocking/mirror driving is a big topic but, at least for Denny Hamlin, it isn’t easy to do on the road courses. He admitted he isn’t able to do it.
“It’s hard. I can’t do it. There are some that can but I can’t do it well,” he explained. “I have to just concentrate all of my being on what’s in front of me.”
Portland International Raceway also adds in a level of difficulty.
“Certainly I think that it’s technical and certainly the Portland track looks techincal,” Hamlin continued. “I’ve never driven on it before but there’s some runoff there but it’s a pretty narrow race track so you gotta stay on line.”
This weekend, Shane van Gisbergen will try to win back-to-back races in the Xfinity Series. He is very capable of doing it. Thankfully, for Denny Hamlin, SVG isn’t in the Cup Series race this weekend.
Then again, there are two other Supercars drivers. Cam Waters is suiting up for RFK Racing. Will Brown will race for Richard Childress Racing in the 33 car. Brown replaced SVG at Triple 8 Racing in the Supercars series.
Denny Hamlin won the pole award at Sonoma Raceway a year ago. It will be interesting to see if he defends that pole this weekend. However, Hamlin would finish P36 in a DNF effort after losing control late in the race and hitting the wall.
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