“I don’t think I hit him” - Ross Chastain shares his feelings about Kevin Harvick incident

Ross Chastain and Kevin Harvick were making up good ground in the Ambetter Health 400 until it went wrong for the latter and those behind him.

After the second stage, Harvick was leading with Chastain following behind when Harvick lost control, spun in the middle of the track, and collected other cars in the process.

Chastain escaped without any damage while Harvick had to retire the car.

A video review showed that there was no contact between the two cars. The #4 Ford Mustang must have gotten loose because of the disturbance in the air stream.

Speaking to Bob Pockrass, Chastain admitted that there was no contact between them as he attempted to bump draft. He said:

"Just trying to help push him. We had made a lot of ground up. I don’t think I hit him."

Harvick, who had started the race in sixth position, dropped down the order in the first stage, finishing outside the top 10. He then finished inside the top 10 in the second stage. However, it was his pitstop strategy during the caution at the end of stage two that set his race on the right course.

The #4 Ford was only serviced for two tires. He was sixth on the restart and then unleashed the pace of the #4 Ford to eventually grab the lead on Lap 189. However, his stint at the front was short-lived as the aforementioned incident occurred a lap later.

The 47-year-old believes that there was no contact between the #4 and the #1 as he said in a post-race interview:

"I don’t think he actually even hit me, but it started chattering the rear tires and then I was just along for the ride. I think he just caught me so quick right there in the middle of the corner and then he was kind of up on the right rear part of the corner. He came back down and when he came back down it just spun the thing out."

The incident raised the second caution of the race as 12 cars were involved in the pile-up. Josh Berry, Chris Buescher, William Byron, Kyle Busch, Harrison Burton, and a few others sustained damage.

Ross Chastain finished the race in the 13th position and dropped down to third in the driver's standings, five points adrift of leader Joey Logano.

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Ross Chastain opens up about Phoenix incident

Ross Chastain spoke to the media on Saturday where he revealed his state of mind when Denny Hamlin initially took him out of the race in Phoenix.

He said:

"Initiallly when I'm hitting the wall and realizing we'll finish last on the lead lap, I'm mad... and I'm human and we really worked hard to finish good and we were going to."

The #1 driver further revealed that he calmed himself in the cool-down lap trying to avoid a fight. He then accepted his mistakes in previous encounters with Hamlin and cited them as a learning opportunity.