Denny Hamlin finally took the points lead from Tyler Reddick on Sunday. But he refused to celebrate. Instead of cheering, the veteran driver left Sonoma Raceway feeling very frustrated. His tiny one-point lead over Reddick leaves him vulnerable. And a late crash ruined his chance to build a bigger lead. Because of this, his new first-place spot felt like a loss.

Also, despite the team pointing out the culprit for the crash much earlier in the race, Hamlin chose silence while speaking to the media.

“I haven’t seen it, Jeff. I know you want a reaction, but I haven’t seen it. So when I see it, I’ll react to it,” Hamlin told Insider Jeff Gluck after the race. “It’s frustrating, for sure.”

Hamlin came into Sunday hoping to conquer one of his worst tracks. He has never won at the Sonoma road course and holds a terrible 20.1 average finish there. For a while, he looked ready to beat those odds. Hamlin drove his No. 11 Toyota smoothly in the top 10 for most of the afternoon. He was expected to improve his average, as he placed his Toyota right ahead of Carson Hocevar.

But on lap 64, disaster struck. As the field bunched together near Turn 7, bumping into another car seemed inevitable. Replays later showed that Brad Keselowski bumped into rookie Carson Hocevar. That contact forced Hocevar directly into Hamlin, spinning the No. 11 car around. Hamlin dropped to the back of the pack and failed to score any stage points.

Confusion emerges between Hocevar and Keselowski amidst Denny Hamlin’s incident

Hocevar’s #77 was quickly put to blame, as Hamlin’s team confirmed it. However, it was tough to claim, considering how bunched up the field was. Which is exactly why Hamlin also refused to point fingers before watching the replay. However, it wasn’t the spin that frustrated Hamlin; it was the loss of points. While he had a competitive pace in the car, the damage from the spin made it hard for him to regain the places.

“Definitely, all the finishes matter,” Hamlin explained. “I thought we were really doing a good job of having a good car. And, I didn’t have great restarts. I’d lose one spot here and there, but we were a top-five car on speed. And then obviously once we got to the back, the nose got damaged so much that it just took all the downforce off of it.”

With four race wins, a career-first three-peat, and an average finish of 8.2, Denny Hamlin is going through one of the most competitive seasons of his entire career. Because of the Chase format, he is currently the most likely to win the championship. Tyler Reddick faced some issues in his car and finished right at the bottom, while the #11 managed to climb 10 spots, finishing 26th, and taking the lead in the points table, however, by just one point.

Considering how well the #45 has performed throughout the season, it might not be long before Reddick overtakes Hamlin once again and enjoys the top spot in the table, and this was what agitated the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. He could have had a much better finish in the race, which would have helped him to build a much larger gap from Reddick and his other competitors in the points table. Instead, Reddick can easily snatch the lead right back.

The Cup Series Regular Season would soon come to an end as the Chase nears. With the advantage the likes of Hamlin and Reddick have at the top of the table, they’re almost given to make the cut for the championship contention. While it would be the first time that Reddick finds himself in such a competitive position, Hamlin is quite experienced with it.

But the bigger battle lies amongst these two. The Toyota advantage lasted for the longest time this season, which has now put Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick face-to-face. Heading into Chicagoland next, it is one of Hamlin’s relatively stronger tracks, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to pull off a strong performance. Moreover, after the disappointment he had to face at Sonoma, he wouldn’t be left with a lot of options, either.