Any year but this, you could’ve put your money on Denny Hamlin following a win with another win, making it back-to-back. But this year, the narrative is a little different.

Denny Hamlin won the race at Richmond and then followed that result up with a 28th-placed finish at Martinsville less than a week later.

So how could that have been? It’s something that might seem tough to wrap your head around. After all, a team simply doesn’t just win on luck. Hamlin’s car and his team had a strong show at Richmond.

So what went wrong in Martinsville?

Well, former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty has an answer.

“I think he won Richmond and a win is a win. But they went off strategy, not off speed. And I think that’s what we have to go back to,” Petty said. “That’s not a speed win, that’s a strategy (win).”

“So when you went to Martinsville, it had to do with speed. I mean, all those green flag laps, there was no strategy, there’s no strategy to be played,” he continued.

“And they just got outrun all day long. Really, from the time they started practice, they got outrun if you look at how they qualified and stuff. So I think that’s still a concern. That’s a concern for that team.”

Kyle Petty on the glaring thing for Denny Hamlin and JGR

Kyle Petty singled out the one Joe Gibbs Racing driver who feels is “just there.” That driver in Petty’s mind is Christopher Bell, because the rest of his teammates, Martin Truex Jr, Kyle Busch, and Denny Hamlin, are simply missing.

Yet of all three, it’s the No.11 driver that should be more concerned.

Petty said, “I think it’s glaring to Denny Hamlin because A.) He wins one week & B.) His quote is, ‘We’re a top team and we can’t run in the Top 30, What the f**k is going on here?'”

“It’s sad. It’s sad to see a team win and then come back and do that in a lot of ways because they didn’t have mechanical trouble,” he added.

“You can’t point your finger at something.”

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