Denny Hamlin breaks down why he couldn't contend for the win at Ally 400

While Denny Hamlin led laps and seemed to have a car capable of winning the Ally 400, he was just missing something in his car. With guys like Martin Truex Jr. and Ross Chastain performing better in open air, Hamlin had to get his car moving faster some way somehow. It just never happened for the NASCAR veteran.

Once Denny Hamlin lost his track position to his teammate and archrival almost at the same time, it was pretty much over. Hamlin did his best to stay out front, but when the speed of those other cars started to catch up to him, he just couldn’t hold them off.

After the race, Hamlin went over what went wrong and how he felt his day went. The JGR driver didn’t think he had a winning car but made the most of what he had.

“The field is so close, everyone is running the same time,” Hamlin said about the battle for the lead. “It’s real hard to get track position.

“I think we really had a third-place car. The entire race I thought the 19 was better. The 1 obviously came on strong there at the end. It’s all we had with our FedEx Toyota. This is an optimized day, it was a day with no mistakes. We gave ourselves a chance. Didn’t have quite a fast enough car to go and contend.”

Denny Hamlin went on to say in his post-race interview that he wished he had more speed. “That’s what we needed.” Overall, he seemed pleased with his result and how the Ally 400 went. I’m sure he wishes it wasn’t Chastain in victory lane, though.

These JGR Toyotas have been catching on lately. If they continue their great racing throughout the second half of the season, things could really get interesting.

Denny Hamlin led 81 laps during Ally 400

This race had movement throughout the middle of the field. Some drivers caught on later than others. Then there were those that bounced between being top-10 drivers and being outside of the top-10 almost all night.

Not to mention, we had four drivers lead more than double-digit laps during the race. Chastain led the most with 99 laps in the wind. Truex Jr. led 50 laps throughout the race as well. As for Denny Hamlin, the No. 11 Toyota Camry was out front for 81 total laps.

There was also a time when Kyle Busch led for 12 laps before the field caught him. This race didn’t go into overtime and there wasn’t a massive wreck, really. But this was an example of great green flag racing. You had three wide for the lead, Chastain went and split two lappers up the middle – things were electric on the track.

Denny Hamlin just didn’t have it in his car to compete with the 1 and the 19. Plain and simple. However, he didn’t have a major mistake and came out with a P3 finish. He just needs to be consistent now. He has two top-5 finishes and two DNFs in the last four races. Need more of those top-5s to keep the momentum going.