Watch: What Happened Between Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe at Indianapolis?

Published 08/22/2021, 2:03 PM EDT

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USA Today via Reuters

At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Denny Hamlin was poised to finally break his win jinx. Unfortunately, there was a massive obstacle in his path called Chase Briscoe. During the final restart, the duo were side-by-side when the latter was forced off the track.

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Unfortunately for him, he elected to cut the corner, though he couldn’t blame Hamlin. This was because AJ Allmendinger has sneaked down the inside of the Joe Gibbs Racing driver and made it three-wide into the corner. Of course, Briscoe knew that a penalty was incoming, but he still needed the officials’ go-ahead to take it.

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This race was extra important for Chase Briscoe, because it was his home race. So it is fairly obvious that he will want to perform well in front of his fans. According to former driver Jeff Burton, he should not have served a penalty until he was told to do so.

What happened to Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe after that?

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The stewards immediately noted that Briscoe owed a stop and go penalty for short-cutting the course. While Chase Briscoe maintained that he got pushed off, the team told him that he had a penalty. Later on, a recovering Briscoe got into the back of Hamlin and spun him out of the race. This resulted in the penalty being changed to a pass-through.

USA Today via Reuters

Naturally, tempers flared between the Stewart-Haas Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing drivers. Hamlin said, “My team told me he had a penalty right away. To me its obvious if he cut the race track and ended up in the lead, you’re going to have a penalty.”

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According to Briscoe, he realised that this was his best opportunity to win a race. That explained why he went to take that chance with a move on the #11 driver. Naturally, he apologised for ruining Hamlin’s race, because he never had the intention. Chase Briscoe also claimed that he had no idea about the penalty until he reached Turn 10.

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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