Denny Hamlin breaks down why his car broke at Homestead-Miami

Denny Hamlin took some time to evaluate why his car broke and ended his afternoon at Homestead-Miami over the weekend.

The Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman was moving towards the front, looking to make his move and attempt to end his Sunday in Victory Lane when it all went up in smoke. Hamlin’s wheel jolted to the side, and he went straight into the wall. It was all over in a matter of moments.

There hasn’t been much of a definitive answer on the matter, as Hamlin was racing Ryan Blaney hard for numerous laps leading up to the incident. However, they never made contact, and Hamlin didn’t have a tire down or anything.

Regardless, Hamlin wondered what it could’ve been on the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, and he recognized there’s a myriad of options.

“We don’t know yet. There’s a couple options that we’re looking at,” Hamlin stated. “One being the power steering just, went out. That’s one option, for sure. The other could be a suspension part that broke. We don’t know which one. It was abrupt, obviously. You know, the times that I did hit the wall earlier in the race, I don’t know if it was crazy hard or — it wasn’t egregious. Certainly something that shouldn’t have broke a suspensions part. I mean, if it didn’t break a toe link, it shouldn’t break anything else.

“After I’d hit the wall, we hadn’t observed any data that showed that the wheel — for me, the steering was all aligned, and my car was still fast after, so there was nothing out of the blue. So something clearly was a fracture.”

Alas, it’s been theorized it was in fact a power steering issue in the days after the race. Nevertheless, it puts Hamlin in quite a tough spot entering Martinsville.

The aforementioned Blaney might not give him any room when the time comes though. After the race, Blaney called Hamlin a “hack” for the way he was racing him, although the surprised Hamlin when he heard the news.

“That’s two people racing, by the way, for the final four of a championship battle. It’s just interesting to me, given who is involved, people are like, ‘Why are you racing Blaney so hard?’ What are you talking about? I’m trying to make it into the Final Four. Like, I don’t quite get it,” Hamlin added.

Regardless, it’ll be fascinating to see if Denny Hamlin can race his way into the Championship 4 on Sunday. Hopefully he doesn’t have any mechanical issues that decide his day again.