Denny Hamlin explains conservative strategy to begin NASCAR Playoffs
During the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta, Denny Hamlin played it conservatively and he still ended up getting himself involved in a wreck. Going into the NASCAR Playoffs, Hamlin wanted to finish top-20 in each of these first three races. Off to a bad start already.
Denny Hamlin is a smart drafting-track racer. In the past, he has been able to sit back and wait to make moves. Today, it felt like he was far too conservative, not willing to take track position when he could get it in favor of keeping a clean car.
Well, on the last lap of the race, Hamlin was still in a wreck. He finished P24 on the day and is now just two points above the cutline.
“I thought there would be a bigger wreck, you know, just trying to play the numbers, figured there would be more incidences than there was,” Hamlin said to the media on pit road afterward, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “I mean, there were still some playoff guys in some stuff, but overall just, I didn’t care about what anyone else did, just tried to get 20 points which is a mid to high-teen finish. Just trying to get through this round, that’s it.”
Hamlin did not see the wreck coming. He isn’t sure what happened, he just saw cars all over the track. Then, he was wrecking too.
“I didn’t see it, just cars turned sideways and then I got hooked there.”
The next two weeks have to be better for Hamlin.
Denny Hamlin takes big points hit to start NASCAR Playoffs
When you get on the track, you race to win. While the current system encourages points racing, Denny Hamlin got too conservative. Honestly, his strategy today showed that no matter what you do, the risk of wrecking is always there at these superspeedways.
Even as conservative as he was, Hamlin was still wrecked. He didn’t earn any stage points on the day either. But, he still feels alright about how things went today.
“I feel okay, feel okay about it. The biggest thing about the rounds is I was trying not to finish 20th or worse at any of these tracks,’ Hamlin continued, via Pockrass. “We do that, then we’re going to be fine. I don’t even know where we finished, but obviously we gotta go the next couple of weeks and perform good.”
Denny Hamlin didn’t zoom through the field. He made progress, but it wasn’t easy to just zip up through traffic. Everything was going according to plan until it wasn’t.
“Eh, I don’t know. The track gets so log-jammed there it’s really hard to, and the track is so narrow, it’s really hard to get – just say you’re going to march right to the front. Our balance was not great the first half of the race and we finally got it pretty good there at the end but obviously we had made our bed to just avoid wrecks.”
Is Denny Hamlin not showing enough urgency here? He had a pretty rough day in Atlanta points-wise and results-wise. He’s strong at Watkins Glen but will need a great qualifying run to score points. Bristol, he won at earlier in the year, but that is going to be a tire race and anything could happen.