Denny Hamlin disappointed in Bubba Wallace-Alex Bowman fallout, accuses No. 23 team of playing 'grabass'

Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman had an intense battle racing for position inside the top 10 of Sunday’s Chicago Street Race. After some beating and banging, Bowman sent Wallace spinning exiting Turn 2 on Lap 70.

At the time, Wallace was on older tires than Bowman. The two were also matched up against each other in the NASCAR In-Season Challenge. Wallace did everything he could to hold off Bowman, who eventually decided he’d had enough of being a pinball between Wallace and the outside wall. Denny Hamlin, Wallace’s 23XI Racing boss, saw the incident after the race. He said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that that he wishes Wallace had let Bowman go on by.

“Would have liked to see the No. 23 team get to the finish line with a good finish. They bounced back from a very tough start of the race. … They were just playing grabass with the 48 [Bowman] and ended up getting the bad end of it,” Hamlin said. “If you’re the 48, I tried everything I could, I’m looking and watching the replay and I’m like, ‘The 48 — I just don’t understand what he did wrong there.’ He got pinched into the wall off of [Turn] 12, his bump into Bubba into 1 wasn’t egregious or anything, wasn’t square in the back, it was kind of left rear.

“At that time, Bubba’s on older tires, the 48 is on newer tires. You’re just not going to hold that back in six laps. It’s impossible. We saw the speed difference between new and old tires. You gotta just let it go. You gotta let him go. Get your day that you need, and it sucks because they are paired up in that challenge, so did that play a factor in how aggressive Bubba was trying to stay ahead of him? Possibly, but to me, I thought when I looked at it… I just don’t know how many options the 48 had. He just got pinched into the wall a lot.”

Alex Bowman recaps incident with Bubba Wallace at Chicago

Bowman finished eighth, Wallace P28. Bowman addressed the incident immediately after the race and said that from his perspective, “felt like he kind of did it to himself.” He then spoke to Wallace, and cooler heads prevailed.

“I wish I would have talked to him before all my interviews, because I did all the interviews under the context that he thought I right-reared him and just crashed him,” Bowman told NASCAR.com. “And then I talked to him, and he thought I was crossing him over and he was clear outside. Spotters can’t see over there, and I was just outside of him, and he moved up. And I hate to say he did it to himself, but he did it to himself, and that’s what he was saying, like he thought I was crossing over.

“So yeah, I hate that I did a bunch of interviews like, ‘What the hell, man?’ But yeah, I’m sure he’s not happy that he got crashed, but at the same time, like I’m between him and the fence. There’s not so much you can do.”

Bubba Wallace airs it out on Chicago Street Race, Alex Bowman scrap

Wallace started from the rear and worked his way through the field twice, only to see his shot at earning a top 10 finish go up in smoke. It’s now two years in a row there’s been issues between Wallace and Bowman in downtown Chicago; this one stung, but Wallace remained positive after the race.

“I’m just proud of the effort,” Wallace said. “You know, late call on the 5 that got us spun. Hated that. Just when you think everything’s going OK, but we were able to jump ship and switch up plans, put us right back in the race. So, man, I was passing cars, having fun, showing that we keep improving and keep building confidence. We’ll be fine. So, hate to see it end that way. It was fun. Fun with the 48. No love lost, all good.”