Denny Hamlin says Corey LaJoie 'made the right move' after Kyle Busch wreck at Pocono

Corey LaJoie was responsible for the Lap 120 caution during this past Sunday’s race at Pocono, taking out Kyle Busch among other drivers.

Heading into Turn 1 off the restart, LaJoie looked to make a move past Busch on the bottom. Busch blocked, forcing LaJoie on the apron. LaJoie then came up in Turn 1 and clipped Busch, sending him up the racetrack. Fortunately for LaJoie, he didn’t sustain any damage during the caution. That came down to the one correct move he made during the sequence, which Denny Hamlin explained on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast.

“He actually made the correct move there when he hit the 8, instead of just kind of slowing down, he gassed it up which he was probably explaining it’s gonna look worse than it actually was, which is true is that he was hoping that he was not gonna — the 8 was gonna come back and clip him. So, he cleared himself of that,” Hamlin said.

Corey LaJoie explains incident with Kyle Busch at Pocono

LaJoie and his team were far from remorseful in the moments after the wreck.

“He hooked himself,” someone could be heard on LaJoie’s radio.

“Fu*k him,” another team member said, “we ain’t worried about him. We’re worried about ourselves.”

Having days to review the incident, LaJoie admitted the outcome was certainly not what he wanted. The Spire Motorsports said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that his plan was to merge in behind Busch, but obviously, it didn’t turn out that way.

“You’re making sometimes proactive decisions, a lot of times reactive decisions in the car. And they’re all split second decisions,” LaJoie said. “Sometimes they’re wrong and you make mistakes. I’ve been getting poked and prodded by my team about being more aggressive on restarts and putting guys in worse spots and putting myself in better leverage positions. So, I just made a commitment to just force the issue more like other guys are doing. His [Busch] car stopped having forward progress. At the same time, I was gonna merge in behind him and essentially hooked him. And unfortunately, wiped out a bunch of cars in the process. That’s not the outcome I wanted.”