“I thought we were cooked”: Denny Hamlin on multiple restarts at the end of Nashville race

After leading 70 of the 331 laps at the Ally 400 in Nashville, Denny Hamlin could only secure a 12th-place finish. He pushed his car to the limit, trying to make it to the finish line with dwindling fuel, but repeated cautions and overtime laps thwarted his efforts.

Reflecting on the race in his post-race interview, Hamlin remarked that after the initial caution and restart, he had anticipated that there would be several more disruptions.

Denny Hamlin won the pole position for the Ally 400, hit 160.354 mph in his #11 Toyota Camry, with a lap time of 29.859 seconds. He started the race on the inside, with Stewart-Haas Racing's Josh Berry on the outside. In the final laps, Hamlin surged ahead again after the position was taken over by 7 other leaders, with just seven laps remaining in regulation. He was a mere two laps away from victory when Austin Cindric’s crash triggered a frenzied finish.

During the first overtime restart at the Ally 400, Denny Hamlin took the inside lead with Ross Chastain right next to him on the outside. Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch were positioned just behind them. Larson, pushing hard into turn one, dipped onto the apron, lost control, and slid up the track, crashing into Chastain and sending him into the wall. The chaos didn’t stop there; Kyle Busch and Ty Gibbs were also caught up in the mess, while Austin Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, William Byron, and Daniel Hemric tangled in the aftermath.

At the second overtime restart, the lineup saw Denny Hamlin again leading on the inside, with Larson on the outside and Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch right behind. This time, Daniel Suarez spun out, clipping the grass.

The race further escalated into mayhem on the backstretch when Ryan Preece bumped into Harrison Burton, causing Burton to spin and triggering a multi-car wreck that swept up Corey Heim, Justin Haley, Josh Berry, Todd Gilliland, Harrison Burton, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Blaney, and Daniel Hemric.

By the third overtime restart, the top positions remained largely the same with Denny Hamlin and Larson leading, followed by Truex Jr. and Busch. Chase Briscoe, in sixth, was the first car among the leaders with a considerable fuel advantage.

But then Larson’s car ran dry, causing a bottleneck at the front. Kyle Busch, unable to avoid Larson’s faltering car, ended up getting pushed into the back of him and spun out at the start-finish line.

By that point in the race, Denny Hamlin was running low on fuel and had to pit, along with Martin Truex Jr., ultimately finishing 12th after two more restarts. During his post-race interview, Hamlin reflected on the tumultuous race:

"We survived them all, you know, didn't get the restarts I wanted each time but just didn't have enough fuel in the tank. So, a bunch of us [were] in that same boat. I was 15 seconds away from the win on... lots of Hendricks’ spun and then 10 seconds away on the few cautions after that. [...]

I knew once they started one, it was going to be lots of them, just the way that... We're all going into turn one and everyone's sliding and beaten and banging. I knew that. We're cooked. I thought we were cooked," Hamlin added.

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Kyle Larson got his payback on Denny Hamlin at Nashville

Last week at the USA Today 301, as they rounded turn 4, Denny Hamlin went wheel to wheel with Kyle Larson for the second spot, nudging him and making it a tight side-by-side race with 94 laps left.

Initially, Denny Hamlin couldn't complete the pass, but on the next lap, he pressed harder and finally edged ahead into second place after some rough contact. The aggressive move even sparked a bit of a back-and-forth between Kyle Larson and his spotter, Tyler Monn.

However, this week, when Larson had his shot at payback, he pushed Hamlin's #11 Toyota up the track towards the close of Stage 2. Denny Hamlin was irked by the maneuver. Although he initially sought to retaliate, he backed down after his crew chief Chris Gabehart, urged him to cool it.