Denny Hamlin critical of late performance at Pocono, despite snapping skid

Despite coming up P2 at Pocono Raceway and getting his first top-5 finish in five races, Denny Hamlin wasn’t too thrilled. The NASCAR veteran came in as the two-time defending winner and this year came out one spot short.

Denny Hamlin should be happy to have this performance. He could have the points lead by now. If it hadn’t been for a five-race skid prior to Pocono. He is now just 20 points below leader Chase Elliott for the regular season championship.

After the race at Pocono, Hamlin broke down the turning point of the race. It was a battle with Alex Bowman that sealed his fate.

“I knew that was the critical part of the end of the race was trying to come out of that restart second, and I just didn’t do a good job of trying to clear Alex there and he did a great job of clearing me,” Hamlin told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “So, it just, I knew I was just kind of sitting there at that points waiting on the tires to wear out so I can make a move. You get so aero tight at this race track that you need, I need those long runs for the field to kind of start spreading out to make moves and it was just too late.”

Denny then gave props to Bowman for his driving. The two of them went at it side-by-side all the way around the Tricky Triangle.

“Yeah I mean I thought that he did a great job of holding his line and I held mine and certainly felt like, that was just a pivotal point, right?” Denny Hamlin explained. “He knew how important it was for him, I knew how important it was for me and he got the best of us.”

Passing was tough. Not impossible, but difficult. When it got to the end of the race, it only got worse. Ryan Blaney was able to pull away because of it.

“You know we really made a lot of positions up on restarts,” Hamlin continued. “When we did go back to the pack, through the pack I thought we did a really good job of making our way back through. But by the time the race gets toward the end everyone fine-tunes their car and they get it really, really good and really close to the best. So, if you just put them out front, they’re going to show some big speed and that’s what the 12 did.”

Denny Hamlin has three wins this season. It feels like he is back to form once again. The top four drivers in the regular season standings are only 20 points apart. Elliott, Hamlin, Kyle Larson, and Tyler Reddick are all in the mix.

One bad week and it is over for these drivers’ hopes of being regular-season champions. That comes with 15 playoff points as well. Those are valuable points, too.

Time will tell in these next five races if Hamlin is back to his old ways. This season has been a fight between him and Larson. There are others that you can’t count out now. Elliott keeps putting together great runs, not letting the bottom fall out from under him.

Reddick has been close, but come up short a couple of times. In the grand scheme, it means he’s picked up quite a few points in the last five to six weeks. Now he has a real chance at winning the regular season title.

Denny Hamlin gets back to the front of the field, but falls short. Is this a sign of more strong runs from Hamlin as the season winds down and the NASCAR Playoffs approach?