Last weekend at the Talladega Superspeedway, Denny Hamlin seemingly committed a cardinal sin. There is an unspoken rule in any motorsport series where racers should never crash into their teammates. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, and the victim was Christopher Bell. With 9 laps to go in the stage 1 run, the #11 car pushed the #20 Toyota. It was not, but the good old push of superspeedway racing. However, as the field picked up the pace, the slightest contact by Hamlin on Bell sent him crashing into the inside walls.

Even Hamlin was taken by surprise with how the #20 car got turned sideways, taking #17 of Chris Buscher along with his teammate. “Man…apologies if that’s on me. We weren’t even up to speed yet. I don’t know why that would have wrecked him. When he shot down to the bottom, I wasn’t even sure I was actually on him.” The veteran JGR driver wasn’t trying to sabotage his teammate; if anything, he was clueless about what happened on the restart.

There was no malicious intent by Hamlin. But, as it turns out, the real flaw or mistake wasn’t made by the driver behind the wheel; it was the machine itself.

What caused Denny Hamlin to wreck Christopher Bell?

Kevin Harvick knows how tricky it is to handle a Next Gen car, especially on the superspeedway. After calling the race live from the FOX booth, he sat down for his weekly show, Happy Hour and decoded the reason behind the freak crash that led to Bell’s exit from the Talladega race. “We saw it with the #20 and the #11. Christopher Bell getting knocked out of the way – not knocked out of the way – He got spun out by Denny Hamlin. Denny was kind of dumbfounded by everything that was going on, because it was on a restart. Not really high speed.”

“The #20 car wasn’t exactly straight the whole time, while Denny was. With that crown on the back bumpers, it is very easy to spin the Toyotas out. They’re not built like the Fords, and the Chevrolets are not quite as bad. The nose on the Toyota is flatter now, but the back bumper has a lot of crown to it. If you’re not precise and if that car is moving around a little bit, it definitely is really easy to do. I did this to Tyler Reddick at Talladega, and I was like, ‘I don’t even know if I touched him.'” Harvick explained on his show.

It was just the case of the Toyota Camry not being able to take the hard pushes that the Fords or Chevys can. Not to mention, the two cars weren’t exactly in a straight line when the contact was made. Bell, who found himself wrecking hard into the wall, wasn’t looking to point fingers at anyone as he understood the nature of the crash. “You know, Denny (Hamlin) didn’t do anything wrong. You have to push, you have to push to be successful. It’s a product of the cars we race with this rules package.”

The big conversation after the wreck was regarding the safety of the drivers. Like Christopher Bell, Connor Zilisch was also involved in taking a hard hit during the Xfinity Series race. The impact on the JRM rookie was indeed detrimental as he will have to sit out this weekend’s race after sustaining a lower-back injury. In order to curb such hard hits, NASCAR is planning to change the wall design at Talladega.

NASCAR’s Senior Director of Racing Communications, Amanda Ellis, shared an update on changes to the wall section in the Hauler Talk. “That wall will be adjusted or, essentially, corrected before we return in the fall. They’re going to take that lip out and actually straighten it out and kind of straighten the wall as well. Then there’s an additional area of the track, too…that will also be fixed before we return to Talladega in the fall.”

On the flip side, this wreck also led to a hilarious banter between Denny Hamlin and Chris Buescher’s team. Scott Graves, crew chief of the #17 RFK Racing team, asked Hamlin about insurance coverage on their wrecked race car on social media. However, Hamlin’s witty reply stole the show.

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Denny Hamlin claps back at RFK Racing

Buescher was the innocent bystander who got caught up in the mess and ended with a DNF finish. Although, Buescher hurled a few expletives in the heat of the moment, his crew chief turned the screw with his cheeky message on social media. “This team works so hard every week, had our driver in position for the end of stage 1, and the guys that would consider themselves some of the best drivers in the world can’t even get through a restart. I see why you have an insurance sponsor @dennyhamlin, can I file a claim?”

Well, Hamlin didn’t take this to his heart; rather rubbed salt on RFK Racing’s wounds. “He can [file a claim]. Call Flo. But unfortunately for RFK, it’s a one-car maximum, and it looked like they needed three claims yesterday.” Not just Buescher, but team co-owner and driver Brad Keselowski also ended his day early after a collision with Kyle Busch. And Ryan Preece, who seemingly had a runner-up finish, was disqualified by NASCAR, citing illegal adjustments to the spoiler.

It will be interesting to see if the two teams take this social media beef forward and continue it on the racetrack.