Denny Hamlin addresses huge NASCAR penalty, impact on strategy
Fresh off of his penalty that took 75 driver and owner points and 10 playoff points, Denny Hamlin is back racing at Daytona. There isn’t much he can do to change the NASCAR decision, but he can go out and win a race.
Denny Hamlin was in the running for the regular season championship. Now, he is going to try and pick up playoff points to make up for his penalty. He dropped from third to sixth in both regular season and playoff points with the penalty.
Before qualifying, Hamlin was asked about the penalty on the NBC broadcast.
“No, we go each week to try to win,” Hamlin explained. “We’ll do that these next two weeks and then the 10 weeks after that. It just takes away a lot of the effort and hard work we put in to get the bonus points, obviously takes away our room for error in the playoffs.”
Toyota Racing Development messed up this season. After Denny Hamlin won at Bristol, that engine, which only had one race of mileage on it, was sent back to Joe Gibbs Racing. That is fine and dandy. Engines are supposed to be used two to three times.
JGR then used that engine at Darlington. Again, that is fine. However, after the second use, a race-winning engine must be sent to NASCAR to be torn down at the R&D Center. TRD mistakingly sent the engine back to their shop where it was taken apart and reassembled.
Toyota self-reported the violation, which is why it took so long for the penalty to impact Denny Hamlin and his team. Both TRD and NASCAR were unaware at the time.
Denny Hamlin impacted by points penalties
Denny Hamlin and his team reused a race-winning engine without NASCAR inspecting it first. Toyota TRD, as the engine provider for Joe Gibbs Racing, is ultimately who made the mistake.
However, it doesn’t matter. JGR used the engine and that means they receive an automatic L2 penalty. On top of 75 driver and owner points and the 10 playoff points, crew chief Chris Gabehart is being fined $100,000.
This penalty is going to drop Hamlin out of the regular season championship race. He was 28 points back from the leader Tyler Reddick. Now, Hamlin drops from third to sixth overall in the points. 786 to 711.
Denny Hamlin will also drop from third to sixth in playoff points. He drops from 21 to 11 and is now between Team Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric in playoff points.