Denny Hamlin responds to claims Bubba Wallace 'let up' on purpose at Martinsville

NASCAR is investigating any possible race manipulation that took place in the final laps of Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, and that includes the role Bubba Wallace played in helping Christopher Bell.

Bell made a last lap pass on Wallace, a fellow Toyota driver, to secure at the time his spot in the Championship 4 at Phoenix next Sunday. Wallace ran 2.4 seconds slower than Bell on the final lap, appearing to slow up to allow Bell to catch up and go by him. Bell needed to pass Wallace to claim the final transfer spot over William Byron.

The 23XI Racing co-owner addressed the claims that Wallace let up late in the race to allow Bell to make the pass on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast. While Hamlin admitted he’s not entirely sure what happened to Wallace, it was clear to him something was wrong with his car late in the race.

“I don’t know what was wrong with the 23 car [Wallace],” Hamlin said. “I’m not at the shop. It’s Monday morning early. I saw video and audio and he about busted his ass with five to go. And then every time he entered the corner, he was nearly crashing. So, I don’t know. I’ll definitely say what I don’t know, and I don’t know what was wrong with the 23 car. I know that NASCAR inspected it after the race. Which is unusual for the 19th place, 18th place car to get inspected.

“But they’re going to make sure what they heard on the audio from Bubba is factual. They’re going to look at all that stuff, certainly. But if everything plays out natural between all the cars, I think that the 24 [Byron] is out. The other cars were just parked behind him. Lap times would indicate that’s the case. And it only took one car to pass him for him to be out.”

Bubba Wallace explains last lap incident with Christopher Bell at Martinsville

Speaking with NBC Sports after the race, Wallace claimed something got “loose or broke.”

“I went loose or something broke and he’s nursing it,” Bubba Wallace said. “And then he tried to slide me. I’m like, ‘Brother.’ Just trying to bide our time and not crash and bring out a caution. So, that was it.”

Bell was issued a safety violation 27 minutes after the race for riding the wall to advance past Wallace. Riding the wall became a safety violation after Ross Chastain’s “Hail Melon” at Martinsville two years ago. That eliminated Bell from the playoffs and put Byron into the Championship 4.

NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said the possible race manipulation from multiple drivers played no role in the decision to penalize Bell.

“If you look at the other situations, the 23 [and] the cars behind the 24 [Byron], really no bearing at this time,” Sawyer said. “We’ll look at those at a later time. But when you really just [look at] exactly what happened, look at the 20 [Bell] getting up against the fence and then riding the fence, which as we clearly stated in our statement after Ross did that, that would not be accepted.”