Denny Hamlin just broke down what happened to his car losing track position at the Cup Series race in Iowa after earning a P11 at qualifying. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin said something like that doesn’t happen frequently, but it does happen.
“It’s a five percent chance, it just doesn’t happen that often,” Hamlin said. “I think new paved surfaces always change a bunch as rubber gets laid down. We saw it really during qualifying. …If you were in Group A like I was in was two seconds off from what we were running in practice. That was because the rubber got washed off right before we qualified.
“That tells you how sensitive the track is to rubber. There was ARCA and Xfinity practice before we practiced, and so my car was handling pretty good. I felt pretty good with the times, it was doing well. But once you get all the cars out there laying rubber, new surfaces change a ton. For whatever reason, it just changed in the wrong direction.”
Hamlin dealt with multiple issues on Sunday, which led to him earning a P24 finish. It’s the second consecutive race that Hamlin finished outside the top 20 after earning five consecutive top-five finishes. On the podcast, Hamlin talked about his struggles over the last two weeks.
Denny Hamlin explains his issues during the last two races
“Yeah, we were on a roll there for a little while,” Hamlin said. “It would be hard for me to kind of pick apart like well, what could I have done better? Maybe given some better feedback overnight, but it’s hard to predict when the track changes that much from Friday practice to Sunday the race.
“I had a blown engine obviously, can’t do anything about that. And then [Kyle Larson] when he wrecked right in front of us, we got in it. I don’t feel like I could’ve changed much. Certainly, we could have been a little better and then not been in that spot when [Larson] got crashed, but I don’t know, to be only 38 back with two horrendous finishes in a row we still got time.”
Hamlin will compete in the playoffs this season as he’s won three Cup Series races. He has accomplished everything in his career except winning a Cup Series title. In the last five seasons, Hamlin has finished no worse than fifth in the standings. In 2010, Hamlin finished second in the standings behind Jimmie Johnson.
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