“I was trying to back up to him”: Denny Hamlin admits focusing too much on Kyle Larson cost him Kansas win

Denny Hamlin lost the Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Kansas Speedway by a narrow margin of 0.327 seconds against Tyler Reddick, who drives the #45 Toyota for 23XI Racing – the team Hamlin co-owns with NBA legend Michael Jordan.

Hamlin appeared set to sweep wins in both Kansas races this season until Chris Buescher’s wreck with six laps remaining sent the race into a two-lap overtime and with new tires, several teams took different pit strategies.

Hamlin and Reddick both pitted for four new tires, but a rough restart dropped the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver as far back as eighth place exiting Turn 2. He made a comeback to second on the final lap but ultimately failed to catch eventual winner Reddick.

Speaking on what went wrong on the final restart, Hamlin said he was too focussed on Larson instead of looking in the front that cost him another NASCAR Cup Series playoff victory. Hamlin said:

“Well, [Larson] was just laying back so much. I was trying to back up to him. Should have just kind of focused forward probably. It gave [Reddick] an opportunity to get up there in front of us. Just kind of sleeping on the restart, looking in the rear view instead of looking in the front,” as quoted by motorsports.com.

Even though Denny Hamlin lost a Kansas race, he still ended up celebrating a win – as a team owner. He gave credit to Tyler Reddick for his stellar performance on the final restart.

Hamlin said:

“It was a great job of executing. They executed the restart really, really well. It makes me happy that if it wasn't us, it was them. It’s still a decent day.”

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“It certainly flipped the results from first to second” – Denny Hamlin

Three-time Daytona 500 winner led 63 laps at Kansas Speedway and his runner-up finish set him 49 points above the cut-off line, nearly locking him to the Round of 12.

Speaking on late-race change of events, Denny Hamlin said:

“Yeah, certainly it stinks. It certainly flipped the results from first to second. But that’s part of racing, right; our sport is different than others. It is a sport of chance at times, and luck does play a factor, and we were unlucky to get that caution. We knew that there was going to be a handful of cars that was going to do the opposite of what we did. I think the right call was four tires,” as quoted by motorsports.com.

Watch Denny Hamlin next in action at Bristol Motor Speedway for the final race of Round of 16 on September 16.