“Denny Hamlin caught cheating again” - NASCAR world share their opinion on #11 team’s hefty penalty

The NASCAR fans have given their take on Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing's big L-2 level penalty. Despite not being at fault, the driver and the owner paid the price of the mistake committed by their engine builder, Toyota Racing Development (TRD).

After TRD self-reported rebuilding Hamlin's race-winning engine from Bristol without prior inspection from NASCAR officials, the #11 Toyota driver and JGR were each slapped with a 75-point regular season and 10 playoff points reduction. Additionally, crew chief Chris Gabehart was fined $100,000.

According to Section 14.7.1.E (via NASCAR):

"All race-winning engines “Will be long block sealed by NASCAR and must be completely inspected by NASCAR before the engine may be disassembled by the team. If the team chooses to use the long block sealed race winning engine again before being inspected, the engine must be used in the same vehicle number the next time it is used.”

Section 14.7.1.F states the long block engine assembly seals of a long block sealed engine must not be altered, removed or replaced.

The team also breached Section 14.7.1.1.B&E, which states:

“Seals must not be removed without prior approval by NASCAR,” and “if a race winning engine is sealed and presented for post-race inspection at a later date with damaged, altered or missing seals, an L2 Penalty will be assessed.”

After the race-winning engine's life cycle is determined as complete, the engine must be torn down and inspected by NASCAR before the builder can disassemble and rebuild it. However, Toyota mistakenly rebuilt Denny Hamlin's Bristol engine without giving NASCAR a chance to inspect it, and thus, the penalties were levied.

Bob Pockrass shared the news on his X (formerly Twitter) account.

The penalty news quickly captured the attention of fans, who didn't mince words while commenting on the situation.

"Denny Hamlin Caught Cheating Again 🤣🤣🤣," a fan commented.

"😂😂🤣🤣 tats wat he get for cheating!!" another fan added.

A couple of fans, however, believe the situation wasn't as plain and simple as it appeared to be, and pointed fingers at Toyota.

"TRD has gone through this process more than 1000 times over the years, they know protocol. This was done to hide something that they were over the line on. These “mistakes” don’t happen unless it was planned. Can’t blame this on the new guy," a fan wrote.

"Lots more to this story!!! Something else is going on!" the fan commented.

Some fans were caught off guard as they didn't expect such a turnaround of events for Denny Hamlin before the Daytona race.

"Holy shit," one fan wrote.

"What the fuck," a fan exclaimed.

Denny Hamlin drops to sixth place in the regular season standings as he pays the price for Toyota's "grievous mistake"

With three wins, 11 top-10s, and nine top-5s, Denny Hamlin was third in the regular season standings and 28 points behind the leader, Tyler Reddick. However, after getting stripped by 75 points, the JGR driver has plummeted to sixth in the regular season.

Though Hamlin's Cup Series wins at the Richmond Raceway and Dover Motor Speedway will count toward the playoffs, the Bristol victory won't. Toyota took full responsibility for the havoc created inside JGR's garage and David Wilson, president of TRD USA, issued a "full responsibility" statement.

"We left NASCAR in an impossible position because they were not given the opportunity to properly inspect our engine. We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again. TRD takes full responsibility for this grievous mistake, and we apologize to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, the entire JGR organization, NASCAR and our fans,” an excerpt of Wilson's statement read via NASCAR.

Per the rule book, the penalties given to Denny Hamlin and his team were the lowest possible.