“I’m mad”: Ross Chastain shares thoughts about Denny Hamlin incident at Phoenix

Ross Chastain admitted that he was initially angry with Denny Hamlin after the incident in Phoenix. Hamlin bumped into Chastain on the final restart of the race, ending the race for both drivers. The collision, initially viewed as a racing incident, was later investigated when Hamlin openly admitted on his podcast about crashing into the #1 car.

A week later, on March 18, Ross Chastain was asked about his initial reaction to the incident. The #1 driver admitted that he was angry at Hamlin for causing the accident:

"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."

Ross Chastain revealed that he calmed himself in the cool-down lap and then went face-to-face with Hamlin. The 30-year-old said:

"Cool down lap still mad and had a lot of self-talk and weighing out all my options, and I felt like being out of the car and talking to him[Hamlin] was gonna be the best way to go about it."

The two drivers have a year-long history of an ongoing feud. In the Busch Light Clash, Ross Chastain spun Denny Hamlin. At the Phoenix weekend, the #11 driver took his revenge by crashing into Chastain.

When Ross Chastain was asked if both the drivers had reached a truce, Chastain accepted his mistakes in the previous encounters as he said:

"What I’ve learned from all of there were a couple of mistakes that I’ve made that have compounded themselves, and coupled together with a guy like him, it’s going to get a lot bigger than it probably ever should’ve."

The rivalry between the two drivers might have reached its climax, with Hamlin suffering major penalties after the Phoenix incident.

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How did other drivers react to the Denny Hamlin - Ross Chastain saga

While the incident between the two drivers grabbed the headlines for the previous week, a few drivers gave their opinion on the penalties.

Kyle Busch opined that the current generation of drivers had no racing etiquette and lacked respect for their fellow drivers. The veteran driver felt that the NASCAR garage felt different from the old times.

Busch had simple advice for Hamlin as he stated:

"Keep your mouth shut, Simple as that."

Christopher Bell was surprised that NASCAR dished out huge penalties for Hamlin as he believed such an incident in green flag conditions wasn't penalized before.

He expressed his disbelief, saying:

"I was surprised that NASCAR penalized Denny because that happens a lot in our sport. And it’s never gone penalized before. So I was surprised by that."

Reigning champion Joey Logano considered the incident to fall under a 'grey area' and was thankful he wasn't the one to decide on it. Logano had a witty answer, speaking about the driver's honesty in the post-race interview as he said:

"I think you’re always smart about what you say, kind of like right now, you’re kind of putting me in a box here, trying to get me to say the wrong thing. You gotta be smart about what you say at any moment."