Darlington once again delivered excitement with resilient performance and car wrecks throughout the track. Though Denny Hamlin’s  23XI team secured another win, there were a few things he would have hoped went differently for him.

Hamlin was involved in an incident with Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy Motor Club driver Erik Jones that made things a little difficult for him. But the Joe Gibbs racer admitted what exactly had gone wrong that led to a chain of incidents.

Denny Hamlin suffered unexpected ‘damage’ after Erik Jones incident at Darlington

Both had taken good positions in the race, but during Lap 111, Hamlin had a rare moment of misjudgement. He overdrove a corner, expecting Jones to run a different line, which led to him running into the back of Jones’ car.

“I just told him, ‘Bro, I just up and overdrove the corner,’ that’s all I can tell you,” said Hamlin on The Action’s Detrimental Podcast. “I thought you were going high. So, I was going to go low, and then when you were right there low with me, I drove in way too deep for a car to be right there in front of me. And so, certainly my fault on that one.”

According to Hamlin, Jones had little impact on his race due to the incident. Both drivers also spoke about it post-race, with Jones confirming that Hamlin had apologised.

“He let me go in turns one and two, and then I went to run the bottom, and he said he just went to run the bottom as well, and just cleaned me out,” said Jones. “So, he said sorry and says bad is all you can do. It’s definitely a bummer; it didn’t help us for our day. I think we were probably a top-five car. Just took us all day to get kind of back up there.”

Despite the incident with Hamlin, Jones finished in 10th place, his second top 10 finish of the season, while the former finished 11th.

Both drivers surely would’ve hoped to avoid the incident on Lap 111, which undoubtedly affected their finish, especially Hamlin, who was also part of another incident.

Hamlin also had an incident with Bubba Wallace

Bubba Wallace had a great week in the build-up to the race at Darlington. He became a father and also had a front-row qualifying spot. However, the Darlington Raceway does not guarantee anything for too long.

Wallace was dragged into the wreck between Hamlin and Jones. His car hit the outside wall, and from thereon, things ended badly for him. He finished 34th at Darlington, which was his first finish outside the Top 11.

Hamlin was not aware of what had happened to Wallace as he was dealing with his wreck.

“He [Wallace] was reacting to this wreck, and he most likely could not get it wed up,” said Hamlin. “You do not have unlimited grip; we’re sliding on the track as it is. So, if you try to hit the brakes to their maximum capability, all it’s going to do is make you slide into the wall more, and it looked like he got into the wall after he made contact with the back of my car.”

Hamlin confirmed that his car actually started working well after the two incidents.

With NASCAR headed to Martinsville Speedway next, Hamlin will be hoping things are less chaotic and that he can pull off another win to continue his push for a Cup Series title.