Denny Hamlin reacts to NASCAR's new fastest lap rule awarding additional points

There are a few new additions to the NASCAR world this season. Denny Hamlin recently highlighted the Xfinity Fastest Lap. 23XI Racing has a multiyear partnership that was recently extended with Xfinity. And the telecommunications company has a longstanding relationship with NASCAR itself.

By adding the fastest lap rule this year, NASCAR is handing out one bonus point each race. Michael McDowell earned the fastest lap bonus point for the Daytona 500. This rule applies to all three national series.

Before the Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin talked about the new rule on his Actions Detrimental podcast. Of course, he drew the comparison to Formula One.

“So, Xfinity, there will be a fastest lap now,” said Hamlin. “I guess if you’re a new fan or an old fan this kind of maybe tickles your fancy for both of ya. New school, like F1, has the fastest lap although I think they are getting rid of that this year if I’m not mistaken, or maybe next year I’m not for sure.”

With the cutline being so close at the end of the regular season, could these points give a team or driver the push they need to get into the playoffs? What about during an elimination race in the playoffs themselves?

Denny Hamlin doesn’t believe fastest lap will factor in much

If you ask Denny Hamlin, these points won’t matter much. I’m not sure I agree. But here is how he put it when asked by his cohost.

“No, not in the grand scheme of things when you have a big sample size like 26 races, it won’t make a huge deal,” Hamlin explained. “But you know, it’s something. You can’t say it’s nothing. … I like it. They’ve had the Xfinity Fastest Lap for like the last year or so they would show the graphic, I would always see it, it would be on my feed anyway. It’s something that you knew that if you got the fastest lap you got a cool kind of raphic on it. But yeah, I think there’s something to it now. It’s just added as maybe – now a lot of these fastest laps will come at the beginning of the race by whoever’s on the front row.”

If a few teams end up taking a majority of these points, I don’t think we will be saying it is nothing. There are five drafting tracks in the regular season, six in total. If a team wins four fastest laps or five fastest laps, that’s a considerable bonus at the end of the year.

That would have changed the regular season championship if say Kyle Larson had even a few extra bonus points from fastest laps.