Denny Hamlin explains what he should have done differently in final restart at Phoenix

Denny Hamlin is looking back at what he should have done differently in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin discussed battling Christopher Bell for the win after the final restart.

“I got a good jump first, but then he got the lunge,” Hamlin said about racing Bell after the restart. “He’s shortcutting more the dog leg. There’s many things I would have done different in retrospect now. I should have kind of held him a little bit lower, not ran a longer distance.”

Hamlin was later asked if he could have done anything differently if he wasn’t racing Bell, who is his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate. “There was an opportunity in the middle of (Turn) 1 and 2 when he’s on the white flag lap when he slid me, and he cleared me for a brief moment. I could have just said, ‘Okay, I don’t want the outside. I’m just going to be on your bumper here entering Turn 3,'” Hamlin said.

“…If I had to do it all over again, and I could see everything, see the grand picture, know that I had plenty of space behind me with the five (Kyle Larson), I would have said, ‘Okay, I’m not going to put myself on the outside, I’m not going to win on the outside. He’s just going to shove me up.’ I would have got behind him and shoved him up.”

Denny Hamlin shares more on loss to Christopher Bell at Phoenix

Bell defeated Hamlin and Larson to win his third consecutive race. Hamlin expressed his frustration when Bell crossed the start/finish line, but he earned a P2 finish and has moved up 10 spots in the Cup Series standings.

“Great job out of this Sport Clips team. Got better and better as it went,” Hamlin said after the race. “Pit crew did a phenomenal job to keep us in the game when we had a bad stop in the middle. They made up for it at the end.

“First time we were able to get some clean air all day. Obviously, our car was really fast. Really kind of wanted it to stay green there ’cause I thought in the long runs is really where we were going to be able to excel, especially on these tires. “But we got a good restart. The 5 really gave me a great push on the frontstretch on the restart, down the backstretch.”