Kyle Larson had a “brief” and “fine” text exchange with Denny Hamlin, but the Hendrick Motorsports driver is still frustrated by what happened last weekend at Pocono Raceway.
“It was brief and fine,” Larson said Saturday about his conversation with Hamlin. “[We] just text a little bit late last night. He wanted to meet up, but I didn’t really feel like there was a reason to meet up because we were just going to agree to disagree and probably get more frustrated with him and I’m sure vice versa. I’m sure he’d be frustrated with me afterward, so I thought just the brief texts that we had were good and, ultimately, I think it was probably the best.”
Neither Larson nor Hamlin wanted to share what the two discussed.
Hamlin ran Larson hard through Turn 1 at Pocono, putting the No. 5 in a position where he was going to stay in the throttle and hit the wall or back off. By choosing to stay in the throttle and race side-by-side with Hamlin, the two went up the track and Larson bounced off the wall.
Under caution, Larson ran up to Hamlin on the frontstretch and squeezed him into the outside wall. Afterward, the Hendrick driver didn’t hide being angry at his friend and the lack of respect he felt Hamlin gave him.
“I think I did all my interviews before I saw a replay and I knew exactly what happened, and after watching replays, it pretty much confirmed what had happened,” Larson said. “So, my opinion on the on-track stuff hasn’t changed.”
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The more Hamlin has shared on the subject, the more Larson has disagreed with what happened. Larson anticipated Hamlin would say something on his ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast that wouldn’t help the situation.
“I think he said a handful of things that made me even more frustrated throughout the week than maybe I even was after the race,” Larson said. “But we’re trying to forget about all that and go race this weekend and see if we can get a good run.”
Larson said that “over time” he’ll get over what happened between the two. But while Hamlin said if roles were reversed in Pocono, the same thing would have happened with Hamlin on the receiving end, Larson disagreed.
Going back to St. Louis, Larson said he had four or five restarts to take a shot at Kyle Busch for the victory and didn’t do anything dirty. It’s how he said he would have raced at Pocono.
“I respect Kyle, and that’s why I raced him with respect at Gateway,” he said. “And I respect Denny every bit as much, if not more. Or I did, so I don’t think I would have raced any differently than I did at Gateway.”