New Delhi:- Denny Hamlin scored his second win of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season in Pocono on Sunday.
With less than 10 laps to go, Hamlin landed on the inside of leading Kyle Larson on the restart and sprinted through Turn 1 to score the winning goal. As Hamlin completed his pass in Turn 2, Larson hit the wall on the exit of the corner, causing Justin Haley to fall and another caution to be issued.
Last year Denny Hamlin drove Ross Chastain to the wall. He's made it with Kyle Larson now, so Larson brought him back!
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Shortly after the caution flag was raised, Larson pulled up to Hamlin's door on the front straight and expressed his displeasure with the way Hamlin was driving. On the final restart, Hamlin comfortably held the lead with three laps to go and was ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Martin Truex Jr. when the warning flag was put up on Ryan Preece's stalled car on the final lap. Preece spun on the penultimate lap, but NASCAR remained vigilant. He was unable to make progress between Turns 2 and 3 and the leaders were closing in on the final lap.
Hamlin got out of his car and was booed by many of the fans at the venue before defending a pass from Larson in the noise.
"We had a lead," Hamlin said in the winning interview. “He went off the corner first, obviously the right side of the tire wasn't clean, but he hit the gas and he was going again. In these positions, you have the choice of either keeping the turn wide open and slamming it into the fence, or lifting the turn and blowing it up. But those are the choices they made.” I have never met any of them.
Hamlin used plural nouns because the caution that induced the winning restart pass was due to Alex Bowman's fall. Bowman spun in front of Hamlin from 3rd at Turn 3 and Hamlin was approaching Bowman's bumper before the No. 48 spun, but replays did not show Hamlin touching Bowman's car.
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The victory was Hamlin's 50th of his career and seventh at Pocono. The 2.5-mile triangle course is his best course, finishing in the top 10 in 22 of his 34 starts. Larson finished 20th after crashing across the field on the final lap, possibly due to car damage. As you might imagine, he wasn't crazy about his friend Hamlin.
"He's sacrificed me a lot of good places throughout my career and I know he says I'm going in a certain direction, but I don't think I've ever had to apologize to him for anything," Larson said. "So I don't know if he apologizes after that, but that's the way it is. Anyway, go ahead."
Larson then explained how the on-track incident affected their relationship. "Yeah, it makes things fucking embarrassing, anyway," Larson said. "He's always right. All my friends know that Denny is always right. I'm sure he was there too. That's the reality. I don't mean to hurt your on-track friendships, but it pisses me off. And I feel like I should be angry. "
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Larson booked himself on lap 45 of the 160-lap race and was on track to win the race. Larson's machine collided with the wall from behind at Turn 1 shortly after the restart due to Christopher Bell's corner touch, and although the damage was minimal, he lost a lot of positions on the track.
On the final pit stop cycle of the green flag race he did the same again. Hamlin (2 tyres) and Truex (4 tyres) both made their final pit stops before Larson got ahead of both drivers by making a pit stop on two tires. He did a great job staying ahead of the Toyotas until the race turned green and Chase Brisco was flipped by Ty Dillon with less than 20 laps to go.
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Austin Dillon may regret his helmet throw against Tyler Reddick on Sunday. Dillon hit the wall hard at Turn 1 on lap 105 and crashed. Dillon moved inside in the middle of the three-way, with Tyler Reddick next to him. After making contact with Reddick, Dillon hits a wall.
After getting out of the car, Dillon removed his helmet and carefully threw it over Reddick's car. After leaving the infield care center, Dillon blamed Reddick for the accident, but replays showed Dillon moved to Reddick while Reddick held the line. "He felt solid," Dillon said, insisting he had the right to keep the lane.
Dillon then said he would have to "disrupt some people" given his aggressive driving style in the Cup series. That was the quote of the driver who beat Aric Almirola to win the 2018 Daytona 500.
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Denny Hamlin came up with his second win at the season at Pocono raceway this week. After getting the lead at only 10 laps he got stamped with the another driver Kyle Larson at the turn 1 and after this Larson made a way into the door of Hamlin straight away showing dissatisfaction after the crash.