WATCH: Denny Hamlin Hits the Wall Hard After a Tire Failure at Indianapolis
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On Sunday, Denny Hamlin was close to wrapping up another victory, this time at Indianapolis. Unfortunately, fate had other designs for him, where a late tire failure ended his race, a mere 8 laps from the finish.
In his own words, Hamlin was “gutted” to retire for the first time in the 2020 NASCAR season. When the tire let go, Hamlin’s car lost control and pitched itself into the Turn 1 retaining wall. In the end, he was left to rue what could have been, while Kevin Harvick inherited the lead and subsequent victory.
Tire issues take a Brickyard 400 win away from Denny Hamlin. pic.twitter.com/MuT6e0zxoA
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) July 6, 2020
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Poor old Denny Hamlin was devastated
Speaking to the NASCAR website after the race, Hamlin said, “Just, it’s tough. I hate it for the FedEx team. We didn’t do what we needed to do and it didn’t work out for us today. I had a fast car obviously and was stretching it out there but wasn’t pushing the right-front (tire) at all. It’s kind of roulette if you’re going to get one that will stay together or not and mine didn’t. You saw the end result. These big races — things don’t go my way all the time. We’re still going to go next week and try to win the next one. We’ll do all we can.”
For nearly 20 laps, Hamlin was in complete control during the final-stage and he even pitted a lap before Harvick. Later on, when Alex Bowman’s crash brought out the caution, he emerged in the lead once the pitstops shook themselves out.
Apparently, Harvick was aware that Hamlin was facing tire trouble, so all he had to do was bide his time. Sure enough, Hamlin’s efforts went in vain as the tire gave up and he slammed into the wall heavily.
“It’s been a great battle and those guys are great competitors,” Hamlin concluded. “The last few weeks, it’s been a head-to-head with me and him. There’s probably not another guy I would rather battle with each and every week. Congrats to them and their team, they did a great job. Obviously, we had two very, very close and equal cars. They got it today.”
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