Denny Hamlin had a good day finishing second at Pocono Raceway, but felt it was a race that got away given the strength of his Toyota.
“It’s hard,” Hamlin said Sunday. “If you blindly said, ‘OK, we’re not going to go race at Pocono, and you’re going to finish first, second, second, are you all right with that?’ I would probably take it.”
It was a needed day for Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. He described the last month of Cup Series racing as a “terrible slump” on the results sheet for his group, as they had not finished inside the top 10 since St. Louis (June 2).
Hamlin led 31 laps at Pocono Raceway and won the second stage, but he needed to have a better restart with 23 laps to go to have challenged Ryan Blaney for an eighth victory at the facility. Instead, Hamlin lined up fourth – second on the outside row – and couldn’t get around Alex Bowman.
It wasn’t until there were seven laps to go that Hamlin finally overtook Bowman. By that point, Blaney had driven away by over one second.
“I knew that was the critical part of the end of the race — try to come out of the restart second — and I just didn’t do a good job of trying to clear Alex, and he did a great job clearing me,” Hamlin said. “I knew I was sitting there at that point, waiting on the tires to wear out so I could make a move. You get so aero tight at this racetrack that I need those long runs for the field to start spreading out to make moves, and it was just too late.”
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The restarts were critical to success. Hamlin wanted to be on the front row whenever the opportunity was presented, but if that option disappeared, the easy choice became restarting from the preferred outside lane.
Hamlin and Bowman didn’t give an inch on the final restart. The two stayed side-by-side around Pocono for a full lap before Bowman cleared Hamlin. When the No. 48 burned his right rear off trying to chase down Blaney, it put him back in the clutches of Hamlin to take one more position before the end of the race.
“I thought that he did a great job holding his line and I held mine, and that was just a pivotal point,” Hamlin said. “He knew how important it was for him; I knew how important it was for me, and he got the best of us.”
Indianapolis is next, another racetrack with long straightaways that reward fast cars. Hamlin is optimistic his team can carry those variables into next weekend where he chases another crown jewel missing from his resume.
“I’m going to be really confident going into next week,” Hamlin said. “We had a great test there, and I feel like we’ve got the speed. That track is going to be a very, very track position-sensitive race, so it’s going to be up to myself and the team to execute on a high level.”