Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Despite having some adversity along the way, Denny Hamlin would end up with a decent finish when the checkered flag flew in the Toyota Owners 400.
The driver of the No.11 Fed Ex Toyota had a pretty decent race going until Lap 156 as under caution during a pit stop, a tire would get away from his crew, resulting in an controlled tire penalty. As a result, he had to start the restart the race at the tail end of the field.
He battled his way through and ended up finishing the race in sixth position and noted post-race that minus the tire incident, his pit crew was pretty flawless and they helped keep the car dialed in.
“It was difficult,” Hamlin said. ” Definitely the track was really slick. As you could see the line was all over the race track. So, fun race. The tire did a good job holding up there and had a good fall off. Proud of the whole FedEx Ground team. We fought back from the pit road penalty and good for our teammates there one-two and we were just right there behind them.”
Hamlin is apart of four car team driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, which saw two of the drivers battle for the win at the front of the field – including some contact between Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch. Teammate etiquette among the teammates was brought up post-race with people wondering what the rule is when you are racing your teammate for the win.
“Yeah, I think every driver is trying to win for themselves,” Hamlin said. “I mean, ultimately if you give yourself an opportunity to win you know you’re not going to wreck your teammate I think its okay. That’s the biggest thing – you can’t wreck a teammate for a race win, that’s for sure.
“I mean, I think that we did a good job with this organization. We had some pit road issues today and alternator issues. We’ve just got to get through one of these races with no issues and we should be okay. Still just a little bit off there and sixth place finish was about what we had.”
With all four cars in the top-10 at the end of Richmond, it seems that Joe Gibbs Racing has figured out the rules package, and knows how to come out on top even when things get a little hairy.
“Yeah, it was,” Hamlin said. “It was a really fun race. I had a blast out there. Just this tire allowed you to move up the race track and make some ground sometimes. Overall I was pretty pleased with everything that we saw and obviously a last lap pass is a good thing.
“No, it didn’t surprise me. We tire tested here so we knew it was coming.”
