Denny Hamlin calls out NASCAR officiating on Cody Ware caution, hints at potential 'conspiracy'

Denny Hamlin said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that NASCAR should have thrown the yellow immediately after Cody Ware lost his brakes and slammed into the Turn 6 tire barriers on the penultimate lap of Sunday’s Chicago Street Race. NASCAR waited nearly 35 seconds before throwing the caution flag.

By then, race leader and eventual winner Shane van Gisbergen had taken the white flag, meaning the next flag would end the race. Hamlin felt NASCAR missed the mark.

“This was not a good officiated race. No question about it [it should be an instant yellow]. That was a massive hit,” Hamlin said. “You have got to throw the caution immediately. That’s not a caution I would have liked to have seen by the way.”

Ware made head-on contact with the tire barriers traveling 93 mph. He radioed to his team, “Need help.” According to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, NASCAR was unaware of how fast he had gone into the barriers and was hoping he could dislodge himself like Kyle Larson did a year ago. If the caution had been thrown earlier, it would have meant overtime in downtown Chicago.

Denny Hamlin criticizes NASCAR officiating’s handling of Chicago Street Race

At the time, however, weather was on the way. Hamlin believes it played a role in NASCAR’s timing to throw the yellow.

“I’m always going to be on the side of crown the fair winner. The fair winner was SVG. And yes, if you get into a green-white-checkered, you could have a lot of issues. But you know what, that’s part of the deal,” Hamlin said. “Sometimes, you have things that you wish didn’t happen in the course of your event, but that’s just bad luck. Regardless of what they tell you, I think no question, rain coming in, the possibility of lightning, the possibility of a complete shitshow worth of overtime — all of that played a factor, in my opinion.

“… They’re saying they didn’t see how big the hit was — I don’t understand that. You are not doing your job as officiating if you don’t see — it’s one thing to look and see there’s a car over there. You gotta know how they got over there. … I’m very certain in my belief that there was a lot of factors, some bad weather moving in place, that played a factor in when that caution was called.”

Ware was able to walk away from the violent collision. He himself was surprised at how long it took NASCAR to issue the caution.

“Yeah, I mean especially given the speed of how fast we were going into the barrier,” Ware told Frontstretch. “Obviously I’m not going anywhere, there’s not much I can do at that point. But obviously at that point I’m just focused on getting out of the car and getting to a safe spot.”