Denny Hamlin predicted NASCAR’s decision on Austin Cindric for Gateway wreck with Austin Dillon
Denny Hamlin has been around long enough to guess NASCAR‘s next move. When it came to the incident between Austin Cindric and Austin Dillon at Gateway Motorsports Park on Sunday, Hamlin perfectly predicted how the situation would be handled.
Tuesday, NASCAR made the decision to not penalize Cindric for knocking Dillon out of the Enjoy Illinois 300 on Sunday. While some thought Cindric right-rear hooked Dillon, there wasn’t enough evidence for the sport to issue a punishment.
Hamlin expected that result from NASCAR.
“It would be one of those where it’s like, ‘I see what you were doing here — trying to do.’ But, the result was the same. So, while it may not be as egregious and the wreck was not as severe, the intent was there,” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“It’s a tough spot. My gut says they won’t do anything, but is that right? I don’t know that’s right.”
During the Coca-Cola 600, Hamlin had his own experience with a right-rear hook incident. He was spun out by Chase Elliott during the Cup Series event, knocking him out of the race.
Hamlin was irate, calling for NASCAR to suspend Elliott, which it ultimately did. The No. 9 driver sat out of last weekend’s race in St. Louis. But that incident was a little more obvious than Sunday’s.
Immediately after the accident, Dillon called on NASCAR to issue a suspension for Cindric.
“I was wrecked intentionally by him,” stated Dillon. “Hooked right, just like Chase [Elliott] and Denny [Hamlin] and Bubba [Wallace’s] deal. He better be suspended next week.”
Austin Cindric defends himself in midst of controversy
Many fans tuned into the Enjoy Illinois Cup Series race on Sunday thought Cindric’s swipe at Dillon was intentional. Even Richard Childress called out the driver, per Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.
On Tuesday, Cindric took to social media to explain the situation. He also provided data in multiple Twitter posts, indicating that nothing was done on purpose.
“I actually start to roll out of the throttle as I recognize the 3 car is trying to fill the gap,” Cindric wrote. “My steering angle does not shift to the left until we make contact. Not exactly the type of behavior you’d expect from someone trying to catch and hook another car.
“Safety is a very important topic and one that is taken very seriously in our industry. Reviewing the data, at no point do I see any neglect towards the safety of others on the racetrack from any drivers involved in this incident, myself included.”
NASCAR vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, agreed with the driver.
“We didn’t see anything that really would rise to a level that would be a suspension or a penalty,” Sawyer said. “It looked like hard racing. One car coming up a little bit and another car going down. …
“As we said last week, we take these incidents very seriously when we see cars that are turned head-on into another car or head-on into the wall. I spent a lot of time looking at that, looking at all the data, looking at TV footage and just deemed this one really hard racing.”