The NASCAR Cup Series Round of 12 has not been Toyota’s story. After sweeping the previous round’s three races, the Japanese OEM inevitably fell into a crisis in each of the past three weekends. And Denny Hamlin has been involved every time – from exchanging sparks with teammate Ty Gibbs in New Hampshire to depriving Bubba Wallace of a win in Kansas. The Charlotte Roval saw an unfortunate continuation of Toyota’s misfortunes, which also affected Chevrolet.

Shane van Gisbergen stamped his fifth road course victory of the year in stellar fashion. Leading 57 of 109 laps at the Bank of America Roval 400 race, he beat Kyle Larson by a jaw-dropping 15-second margin. Meanwhile, his teammate, Ross Chastain, was caught in Denny Hamlin’s messy venture.

Denny Hamlin shuns any rivalry

Well, Ross Chastain was in a tight spot entering the Charlotte Roval. He was 13 points below Joey Logano, who held the 8th and final playoff spot. So for 109 grueling laps around the 17-turn road course/oval hybrid, Chastain and Logano were locked in a ferocious battle of points. Strategy and pit-road execution made for a game of chess between the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing team and the No. 22 Team Penske fold. But one by one, drivers passed Chastain in the final laps and deprived him of points. The final one was Denny Hamlin. But Hamlin admitted that he was clueless in three words, saying that he “was driving blind.”

Does this show yet another instance of Toyota’s lack of coordination? Denny Hamlin admitted so. He told the press that he was completely oblivious of his position. “Truthfully, I didn’t know if I was racing for 25th or 10th. I had no idea of my position; the track was all spread out, the cars were spread out. I had no idea of anything. I was just cutting along that last run.” And Hamlin went on to call out the No. 11 pit crew for not feeding him enough information. “Listened to the radio the whole time. There were just crickets. Nobody said anything, nobody told me anything.”

When Denny Hamlin passed Ross Chastain on the final lap in Turn 7, the latter attempted a last-ditch effort in the frontstretch chicane. That resulted in sending both the No. 11 and the No. 1 spinning before the checkered flag fell. Hamlin reflected on this situation: “No, I was just trying…not to wreck the one. He was fading and obviously blocking aggressively, but I didn’t want to get into him or anything like that. I didn’t want any parts of it.” He added, “It looked like a one, obviously, you know his tires blew off. But yeah, I didn’t know he was desperate.”

Both drivers had a cordial conversation post-race, which was kept private from the press. Ross Chastain was regretful and apologetic toward the No. 11 team afterward. “They were innocent bystanders in it,” Chastain said. “I am sorry to them. Sorry to Denny. Sorry to JGR and his whole team.” Chastain finished 21st, one spot below Logano. And Denny Hamlin washed up in 23rd place.

Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin just added another reason to worry for the rest of this title run.

Is Lady Luck beaming at Ford again?

Remember the 2024 Charlotte Roval race? Joey Logano was in a more dire situation, not having enough points to advance to the next round. But lo and behold, the universe somehow conspired to push him. Alex Bowman‘s post-race technical penalty made that happen, and Logano went on to win the title. This year as well, Logano could only beat Ross Chastain by 0.167 seconds to the line. Now, Logano is again in the Round of 8, eager to be a threat to Denny Hamlin’s goal of scoring an elusive Cup Series championship.

“We’re a dangerous team,” the defending Cup Series champion said. “Anything can happen with us. We’re just a bunch of scrappers. We just keep grinding away. That’s the way we operate. We keep going and going, stay alive, and we got it to work out.” Joey Logano‘s crew chief, Paul Wolfe, also thinks the same. “We’re obviously never out of it. We never give up.”

What was more astounding was that Paul Wolfe was not sure at the Roval race. Things somehow fell into place again for the No. 22 team, as Wolfe said, “Unfortunately, we just didn’t have the speed. And it just makes it hard to call the strategy at times. They’re running numbers based off of an average lap-time curve, right? And at one point, I’m just, like, ‘Guys, we got to figure this off of our lap times’… Finally, there at the end, once Ross got to us there before that stop, I was like, ‘Listen, just what’s our numbers telling us for us?’ And it told us we were faster to stop again. I said, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter what the 1 does, we’re going to stick to our strategy,’ and obviously it paid off, and did what we expected.”

With an extra reason to worry about, Denny Hamlin and Toyota need to get on a war footing. Let’s see if they can get back their momentum in the next round.