Denny Hamlin was victorious Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway in his mind.
He actually crossed the finish line in fourth place (but moved to third in the running order after Kevin Harvick was disqualified), but the recovery from his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team had him satisfied. Hamlin came back from a green flag speeding penalty that put him a lap down and missed the final crash coming to the checkered flag.
“Not how we drew it up, but a dub is a dub, and that was a dub in our book,” Hamlin said. “It’s as close as it gets to it. I’m proud of this whole Mavis Toyota team for bringing me a car fast enough to win, and obviously when I had to go there, I could, and just made the right moves at the right time. A top five is a long way from where we were with about 15 laps to go.”
Hamlin was called for speeding on his lap 105 green flag pit stop. After serving his pass-through penalty, he rejoined the field and was subsequently lapped, but held his line when the field swarmed which helped him blend into the draft.
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It took until a caution on lap 162 for Hamlin to get the free pass. Carson Hocevar was awarded his lap back over the No. 11 at the end of the second stage (lap 122) by being in the better lane coming to the start/finish line.
“This was my one mistake for the playoffs,” Hamlin said of the penalty. “I’m not going to make another.”
Sunday was his fourth speeding penalty of 2023 and his second in the postseason after being called for the same infraction at Bristol Motor Speedway in the final race of the first round.
“I didn’t need anything more; more laps maybe, but we optimized our day to the best we could after the penalty,” Hamlin said of the finish. “Obviously, at that point when you’re a lap down — I’ve been a lap down a lot on superspeedways on penalties — but you’re just hoping there’s a caution for something. You’re looking for debris, you’re looking for anything you could to have an excuse to have a caution.
“Man, it’s tough sweating it out and putting it in other people’s hands to get a caution. But it happened, and then it was up to me to go get all the spots I could at the end.”
By salvaging the day, Hamlin heads to the Charlotte road course 50 points above the cutline.