“No Hard Feelings” For Kyle Larson Over Denny Hamlin’s Controversial Meme Post Talladega Superspeedway Race

Published 04/30/2022, 12:05 PM EDT

NASCAR Cup Series drivers Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson are in news and for no good reason obviously. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin put some bad light on Kyle Larson and the NASCAR community has gone crazy about it.

Despite the move, Kyle expressed that he isn’t affected by it. Even though NASCAR warned Denny to go through sensitivity training, Kyle thinks the Joe Gibbs Racing driver learned a lesson from this.

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Talking about this, Kyle conveyed as shared by Bob Pockrass, “Yeah, NASCAR did what it had to do and I appreciate Denny going through the steps to learn from that. Obviously it’s poor judgment on his part and I think you’re being in a position you’ve to be very careful about what you put up to the public. I know he’ll learn a lot from here in the next couple of weeks. I think we’re all ready to move past it and get back to focus on racing.”

Kyle Larson says NASCAR did what it had to do in response to Denny Hamlin’s tweet. Larson: “I wasn’t personally offended by it, … but I know, and I think he knows now, there are millions of other people that a tweet like that could offend.” pic.twitter.com/lK7IEI3Ufq
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) April 30, 2022

When asked if Kyle is offended since they’re friends, Larson further stated, “I wasn’t offended by it but I know because he’s my friend but I know and I think he knows now that there’s millions of other people that tweet like that. No hard feelings for me.”

What made Kyle Larson make those comments about Denny Hamlin?

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The Talladega Superspeedway race last week saw Kyle Larson finish in 4th place while Denny ended his race in 18th. Kyle triggered a move at the very last moment in the last lap that caused a series of crashes.

I took down a post I made earlier today after reading some of the comments. It was a poor choice of memes and I saw how it was offensive. It came across totally wrong. I apologize.
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) April 26, 2022

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To put light on that, Denny took to Twitter and posted about an Asian woman driving a car from Family Guy cartoon. It was a meme about an Asian woman driving and it had Larson’s name written on it. After receiving heavy backlash, Hamlin took down the post and later apologized with another post.

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Written by:

Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 writer at EssentiallySports. He has completed his Master's in Mass Communication and Journalism from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Sabyasachi is an ardent Red Bull and Max Verstappen fan and has been following the sport for over a decade now.

Edited by:

Pritam Priyedarshi