Denny Hamlin gave his props to Chase Elliott after nearly defeating him on Sunday’s Würth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. Elliott almost lost his lead during the final restart, but a timely push from Alex Bowman helped him overcome a charging Hamlin.
Elliott’s pit crew played a major part in capturing the lead. They performed the three fastest pit stops this season and got him into the lead by lap 152. Elliott reigned on top till the race ended, but faced a serious challenge from Hamlin in the final laps.
Thanks for the submission!
Nonetheless, the No.9 driver comfortably cleared Hamlin and finished almost half a second ahead. Reflecting upon the same, Hamlin said,
“It was really close for sure, but props to the nine team and really 45 that last third stage. They had some really good speed and I thought it was gonna be so close if it went green. I thought it was gonna get there, you know, especially with the hardest the six was trying to hold off the nine.”
“I didn’t have great restarts all day and then just you get set behind a little bit and you know, it’s just those little fine small details,” he added.
The result marks Chase Elliott’s second win of the season, making him the only repeat winner in the last ten races at Texas. Denny Hamlin walked away with 43 points from the race, but it wasn’t enough to chip away at Tyler Reddick’s points lead.
Reddick had a top-5 stage finish, in addition to his fourth-place result. The 267-lap event netted him 42 points and has him leading Hamlin by 109 points.
Denny Hamlin explains his reaction to Jeff Dickerson’s comments in JGR vs. Chris Gabehart lawsuit
Denny Hamlin recently fired off a scathing review of Jeff Dickerson’s remarks against Joe Gibbs Racing. The Spire Motorsports owner called out the Gibbs family for launching the data theft lawsuit against their former competition director, Chris Gabehart.
Hamlin explained his ‘knee jerk reaction’ during the Texas weekend, saying,
“It’s an arms race. If we didn’t protect very important key employees with non-competes and things like that, it would be an arms race, and I would just go to someone at Hendrick, maybe Chad Knaus, and say ‘okay,’ I’ll just give him $10 million a year and ‘bring everything with you.’
Denny Hamlin believes Dickerson tried to defame Joe Gibbs’ character. He also believes the Next Gen car has levelled the playing field and places more focus on setups, simulation data and driver analytics, all of which are disputed in the data theft lawsuit.
A telephonic hearing is scheduled on Tuesday to settle the trial date dispute. JGR wants the trial as soon as November, while Gabehart and Spire want it pushed to next May.
Edited by Vignesh Kanna
Recent Comments