NASCAR Cup Series Chicago street race polesitter Denny Hamlin admits he wasn’t immediately sold on the event’s concept when he first heard about it. But he’s starting to come around.
“I certainly was pessimistic when, when it was first announced; started warming up to it a little bit in the months leading up,” he said on Saturday.
“But when you see the fans that are walking around here on, on a Saturday; their excitement of just seeing a NASCAR race car up close, taking pictures… it kind of is like, this is what we were supposed to do here.
“Running the simulator and, and seeing how bumpy it was… it was a, a mess. But when we came out here and saw all the extra paving that they did, it made it significantly better. They really did a good job of smoothing out some of the big jumps that we had down these straightaways.
“It is a tight race track but it is what it is, and I think it’s got three to four major passing zones that if you can stay close enough, you’ll be able to make passes. So I was worried about, you know, this thing’s just going to be single file and that’s how you’re going to finish. But I think that there’s an opportunity if you have a fast car that you can go forward.”
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As the driver who will lead the field at the green, Hamlin will be hoping to spend most of his Sunday afternoon staying ahead rather than moving forward. The pole lap came on his final run and represented an improvement of around 0.4s on his previous best, but Hamlin said he never had any doubt the time he needed was in the No. 11 JGR Toyota.
“I messed up the first time in the final round when I ran the 88.9 (1m28.9s),” he said. “I knew that I left a ton of time on the racetrack. I thought that the competition was going to let me get away with it but Shane (van Gisbergen) obviously put up a great lap and I knew that, 0.3s, 0.4s, I could probably go get that in certain areas. And we did. I still didn’t hit it perfect, but it was just enough.”
Saturday was a learning experience for the entire field, but one of the big takeaways was that street course experience counted as much as NASCAR experience. Jenson Button was significantly more competitive than he was in his first Cup outing at COTA, while NASCAR debutant van Gisbergen led the sole practice session and very nearly took pole. Hamlin said that watching the New Zealander at work was an education.
“The biggest thing I noticed is the guy is lightning fast in all the corners where I feel super-uncomfortable using that extra three inches against the wall,” he said.
“So where the track is the narrowest and where you saw Chase (Elliott) and those guys get into the wall is where he is extremely fast. He’s just got a feel for those barriers, and the car control that he has, and that’s his advantage right now. We’re not used to cutting the corners that tight, and he is. It’s been impressive what he’s done today, for sure.”