Denny Hamlin on NASCAR penalty for Austin Cindric: ‘The intent should matter’

A big topic of discussion this week in the NASCAR garage is Austin Cindric and his penalty. Even Denny Hamlin is talking. There are a lot of mixed feelings about the right rear hook not resulting in a one-week suspension.

Denny Hamlin talks all things NASCAR each week on his podcast. But this topic seems to be carrying over into the Phoenix weekend.

Austin Cindric received a 50-point, $50,000 penalty for right rear hooking Ty Dillon. For some, that wasn’t a big enough penalty. Hamlin was on the receiving end of a right rear hook at Charlotte in 2023, courtesy of Chase Elliott.

Perhaps that’s why he feels strongly about this subject. Hamlin definitely wasn’t 100% comfortable with the penalty.

“You just judge intent,” Hamlin said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “Like I said, I don’t think the result should matter it’s the intent that really should matter.”

As far as what was the intent, that is something NASCAR can determine. Looking at SMT Data will tell officials exactly what happened. It would show Cindric turning into Dillon and would be an outlier among his other data.

“I didn’t, so I didn’t see the data, I didn’t look at it then and I frankly didn’t have time to look at it this week,” Hamlin went on. “So, I don’t know. I don’t know what the intent was, I’d have to investigate it but that’s not my job.”

Moving forward, Denny Hamlin wants to see consistency. Let’s call a foul a foul and get on with it, even with the new rule on missing a race. Drivers who miss a race without a medical excuse or age limit restriction will lose ALL playoff points for the entire year.

“Yeah I mean, that’s what it’s designed [for]. … I mean it’s, yeah I mean, certainly any time you have a new rule there’s always going to be cause and effect to it, right?” Hamlin continued. “Sometimes it’s going to seem worse than it should be and sometimes it will seem like not enough. But that’s where you kind of got to draw the line and say it doesn’t matter what the result is, a foul is a foul, a flagrant one is a flagrant one.”

While Cindric did get a big penalty, there is a feeling that it wasn’t enough. Kyle Busch said much of the same thing during his media availability. Did NASCAR let Cindric off easy or should they have given him the suspension?