Hamlin agrees with Bell Penalty and laments the manufacturer’s influence on race results

Denny Hamlin agrees with NASCAR’s call to remove his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Christopher Bell, from the playoff picture after the final round of the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, but lamented the influence of manufacturers in the NASCAR Cup Series competition while speaking on his “Actions Adverse” podcast on Monday.

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Bell, who trailed William Byron by one point when the white flag waved during Sunday’s race at Martinsville, drove over the outside retaining wall at the exit of turn four, a move NASCAR deemed contrary to safety protocols put in place after Ross Chastains “Hail Melon” in Martinsville in 2022.

While Hamlin does not believe Bell’s move was intentional or necessary, he accepted NASCAR’s stance on penalizing Bell based on the conversations that occurred after Chastain’s maneuver that earned him a Championship 4 berth two years ago.

“In the end, I think they made the right decision,” Hamlin said. “I don’t like it, but they wanted to prevent us from hitting walls in the last laps to gain or defend positions. C-Bell didn’t have to do it. There was probably a bit of panic at that point.”

Hamlin believes Bell overdid the third turn in a desire to both get into the necessary position to move forward and to get around the slower car of Bubba Wallace, who drives for the 23XI Racing team co-owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan.

“I can’t emphasize enough: once you stepped out of the concrete and onto the asphalt, you saw how dirty the cars were, right, after the race? All that stuff is in that orbit. When you crash into it, it’s literally like hitting a patch of ice on the road in the middle of winter.

“C-Bell hit the wall and in a panic situation there he just shoots to get to the line as quickly as possible. I think he would have been fine if he had just looked away from it and pulled it down. Now it wouldn’t be easy to get down. He should almost stop, or come close to it, and then accelerate out of the corner. I think it was the constant wall contact that they found inappropriate.”

Hamlin also discussed the impact of manufacturer influences on the championship, both for the Toyota teams of Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing and for the Chevrolet teams embroiled in Sunday’s controversial finish.

While Bell raced for his championship life, Byron raced for the Chevrolet duo of Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon, with those two drivers side-by-side and preventing competitors like Brad Keselowski’s Ford from challenging Byron for the sixth position.

This, together with Wallace’s dramatic slowdown in the closing laps and several radio reports among the teams involved, has left an air of controversy surrounding the final laps of Sunday’s race.

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“We’ve been saying this for a while. Manufacturers have far too much say in the outcomes of these races,” Hamlin said. “The manufacturers, I’m part of it, but they ruined superspeedway racing.

“I don’t know what to do about this because NASCAR isn’t going to do anything to the manufacturers. That’s their bread and butter. They don’t want to do anything that upsets manufacturers. They’ve been trying for ten years now or better to put another one in our sport, and they certainly can’t afford to see any of them leave.

‘I don’t know what you do about it. Give them manufacturer series points, right? The manufacturers really think that is somewhat important. We have to do something to bring this back in, because it happens far, far too often.”

Although Hamlin had not received further information at the time of recording about the cause of Wallace’s loss of speed at the end of Sunday’s race, he noted that NASCAR inspected the machine after the event.

“I don’t know what was wrong with car 23. I’m not in the shop, it’s early Monday morning. I saw video and audio and he almost broke with about five to go. Every time he entered the corner he almost crashed. Don’t know. I have no idea what was wrong with car 23.

“I know NASCAR inspected it after the race, which is unusual for the 19th or 18th place car to be inspected, but they’re going to make sure that what they heard on Bubba’s audio is factual.

However, he added that, had it not been for Chastain and Dillon’s Chevrolet blockade, he was confident his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate would have surpassed Byron for the fourth and final spot in Championship 4, ahead of next week’s finale at Phoenix Raceway. .

“If I think everything is 100 percent natural between all the cars and everything, I think the 24 is out. I think the other cars were parked behind him. Lap times would indicate that this was the case. It only took one car to pass him before he was out.

“The question is still: what do you do about it? I just don’t know what you can do about it other than take away manufacturer points. Manufacturers care who wins the Manufacturers Cup.”