Denny Hamlin reveals mindset after incident with Tyler Reddick at Roval

Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick made contact on the frontstretch chicane during Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte.

Hamlin has had some unlucky moments of late, and this looked to be another at an inopportune time with Sunday’s race being the Round of 12 finale. At that moment, Hamlin had some concern as his No. 11 Toyota had sustained a bent left rear toe link. Speaking on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast, Hamlin said his car was “not aligned correctly” after the contact with Reddick, but some “good adjustments” from his team salvaged his day.

“I was worried about the car because it was hurt,” Hamlin said. “You actually could see the left rear tire on TV. It was bent in; It looked like it was bent in and up. The rear of my car was not aligned correctly after that wreck. The credit I gotta give is to my team. My car was not good. It was terrible under braking with the damage. And whenever I went to the left, the thing was spinning out and to the rights it was crazy tight. Not as tight as I was loose but still, this thing was hurt. They made some good adjustments.

“Chris [Gabehart] said, ‘Look, I’m not gonna be able to fix it, but I’ll give you an adjustment in here to try to help the handling.’ And they did a great job. They got the balance to where I could at least maintain and hold my spot. I wasn’t lights out by any means. But they gave me a car just good enough to get a top 15 finish.”

Denny Hamlin advances to Round of 8 after solid finish at Charlotte Roval

Hamlin rebounded nicely from the contact with Reddick, scoring a 14th-place finish. That was enough to move on in the playoffs, though Hamlin will start eight points below the cutline in next Sunday’s race at Las Vegas.

The field remaining includes four drivers who have already won a championship (Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano) and four still looking for Cup Series title No. 1 (Christopher Bell, William Byron, Hamlin, Reddick).

“It’s such a tough spot to be in kind of up like we were because the only thing that really can hurt you is a really detrimental day so you can’t be as aggressive as you really want to. But you can’t lose a bunch of track position either,” Hamlin said. “Great vibe, great job by this Sports Clips Haircuts Toyota team. Chris Gabehart and the team just did an awesome job of keeping us in it. Luckily we were able to come away with a top 15 there.”