$1 Million – that’s what Kyle Larson took home last weekend apart from the trophy post the All-Star race at the North Wilkesboro Speedway. In the first NASCAR Cup Series race held at the speedway since 1996, Larson stole the lead from Daniel Suarez to secure his third All-Star win. And now, in one of the recent episodes of his podcast Actions Detrimental, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin provided a breakdown of Larson’s win and the advantage the Hendrick Motorsports driver had during the race.

While the #99 driver Daniel Suarez led the first 56 laps of the race, he eventually ended up in the 7th position after Larson drove past him to snatch the lead. While talking about what exactly happened to him when he was driving behind the #99, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver revealed that he felt like his tire had just burned up.

Denny Hamlin Reveals There Is Something Off With the Tires

While talking about the condition of his tire during the race, Hamlin revealed,

“All of a sudden my car just picked up out of the race track and I felt like my tires were 80 laps older. Goodyear said to us during a meeting at Charlotte, I think this was last year or the year before. We were talking about why is it that when we get behind other cars, our tires just shatter.

They don’t even slide anymore, they just shatter and it feels like we lose all our grip. And it’s because there’s a saturation number in the tires.”

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Furthermore, Hamlin went on to explain how tire saturation affects the drivers in a race.

How Did the Tire Saturation Help Kyle Larson Clinch the Win?

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Moreover, Hamlin explained the importance of the saturation number and how it exactly affects the cars on the track. While talking about what Goodyear said about the saturation number, Hamlin revealed,

“So, they (Goodyear) said that the saturation number has gone up. So, the saturation is basically ….now this is super uneducated, but it’s like you have to load the car. The car had to have a certain amount of saturation load in the tire to the track for it to get the grip that it is built to have. Now, when you have air taken off of your car, there’s not as much pushing down onto the tires, so it’s not saturating it as much.”

Furthermore, he shared that since Larson dominated most of the race at the North Wilkesboro Speedway, he had a fair advantage over others. He said,

“And therefore it just skims across the top of the surface. So that is the advantage that the first car has. It has all the air on the car…it’s pushing the car down into the racetrack and saturating the top tire to give it actually more grip.”

Denny Hamlin finished the all-star race in the 13th position. Currently, he is in 4th place in the Cup standings with 393 points. Whereas, Kyle Larson has registered two wins to his name with 363 points and is currently placed in the 9th position in the standings.

READ MORE: “We Messed Up”—Joe Gibbs Racing Member Takes the Blame for Ruining Denny Hamlin’s Chances of Winning $1 Million at North Wilkesboro