“Cheated as always”: Fans react as Denny Hamlin ends up with pole position at Nashville

Fans reacted to Denny Hamlin winning the second pole of the season and the 42nd of his career on Saturday while qualifying for this year's Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway. The veteran Joe Gibbs Racing driver flaunted a top speed of 160.354 miles per hour on the Tennesseean racetrack and completed his qualifying lap at merely 29.589 seconds.

So far, Denny Hamlin has made three starts at Nashville Superspeedway where he finished third, sixth, and 21st, and led a combined 195 laps. Currently, the Toyota pilot sits third in the NASCAR Cup Series standings with 580 points to his name.

Congratulating Denny Hamlin, who drives the number 11 Toyota Camry XSE, NASCAR posted,

"The No. 11 has the speed to beat on the concrete! @dennyhamlin wins the #BuschLightPole for the #Ally400!"

Several fans reacted to Denny Hamlin's latest achievement, with one suggesting that he had cheated to do so.

"He cheated as always!" said the fan.

On the same note, another fan commented,

"Rigged."

However, some other comments lauded Denny Hamlin, one of which read:

"Your Tribal Chief Denny Hamlin is P1 !Acknowledge him!"

Few others criticized the new qualifying format that NASCAR used on Saturday, with one saying:

"Only Nascar could figure a way to screw up qualifying where the 2nd fastest in qualifying doesn't start on the front row."

"Worst qualifying set up I've ever seen. NASCAR is back tracking so bad," said another.

According to the latest format, the five fastest cars from each group make it to the finals. If a 'Group A' driver bags the pole, the driver starting from P2 will be the fastest car from 'Group B' and not the second fastest car overall.

This rule relegated Hamlin's teammate Christopher Bell to the third starting position, bringing Stewart-Haas Racing's Josh Berry ahead of him. Interestingly, Bell had recorded a speed of 159.845 mph as opposed to Berry's lap at 159.749 mph. Needless to say, the format did not make sense to several fans.

Denny Hamlin felt confident after recording the fastest lap at Nashville Superspeedway

Denny Hamlin has been suffering from mechanical problems as of late. His last three finishes were 24th or worse. Furthermore, Hamlin's machine had run only two laps at Sonoma earlier this month before the engine on it blew up. Fortunately, Hamlin did not suffer from any such terminal issues on Saturday.

"Seems like we've definitely fixed some of the things we weren't very good with last year," Hamlin explained during a post-qualifying interview, as reported by Speed Sport. "Even during practice and during the race, we fell on a terminal issue with the car we just couldn't get fixed. And it seems like that was an emphasis we worked on coming back here."

"All day today, that was the least of my problems. I definitely feel pretty good about it and certainly, we're going to work on it overnight and I feel very confident we'll be in contention tomorrow," he added, speaking of the upcoming race.

The 300-lap event is the 19th race of the season. Hamlin has never been to victory lane at Nashville Superspeedway. Only time will tell if the Chesterfield native will be able to move yet another step forward toward hitting his 60-win mark on Sunday.