Denny Hamlin reveals damage sustained by his car in Iowa wreck with Kyle Larson
Denny Hamlin is opening up about the damage his No. 11 car took after the Iowa wreck that also caught up Kyle Larson. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin revealed his car was damaged badly after the wreck that happened during the final stage of the Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway.
“Destroyed,” Hamlin said. “It was bad. The wheel was where it should be at 12:00 it was all the way at 2:00. But my team did did a good job. I think we bent some tire rods, knocked some chamber out of it. It was really bad. We were just limping it around for the rest of the day.”
The wreck happened when Larson went three-wide in between Brad Keselowski and Daniel Suárez just before contact off Turn 4. Larson skidded into the outside wall and into the path of Hamlin’s car. Hamlin and Larson made multiple pit stops for repairs before earning P24 and P34 finishes, respectively. Suárez was also involved in the wreck as he got tangled with Larson. But he continued the race and finished ninth.
“If I could see a replay, I would tell you what went wrong, if it was my fault or what,” Larson said after the race, per NASCAR.com. “I mean, obviously if I don’t go three-wide there, there’s probably no crash but I’m probably running sixth into Turn 1, but either way sixth is better than crash. Yeah, I don’t know. Like I said, I think I should have been more aware of who I was around. Suárez is really aggressive, and I don’t know. He was probably just pushing and got loose, I’m guessing, underneath me.”
Denny Hamlin blames Daniel Suárez for the wreck
Hamlin also shared his thoughts on who is to blame for the wreck. “It was not good, for sure, but it looked like Suárez just moved up too high. He got into the left-rear of the No. 5, and you know, he was three-wide bottom, so usually, the responsibility is on you, to hold your car lower, at that point, and he didn’t, and got into the No. 5 and started it,” Hamlin explained. “So, it’s one of those racing things that happen, especially on the restarts, on a short-track like this. I mean, we were three and four-wide, many times, during these restarts, because everyone is — the track gets cleaned up and has no rubber on it after a caution, so everyone is kind of feeling their car out.
“The car doesn’t have much grip for those first few laps, so there’s opportunities to really pounce and pass during that time. Yeah, the No. 99 just mis-judged his right-front fender, and got the No. 5.”
On3’s Steve Samra contributed to this story.