“My mistake”: Denny Hamlin takes blame for Kyle Larson incident at Iowa

As the field jolted down the frontstretch on the 221st lap of the Iowa Corn 350, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson made hard contact. Hamlin ssumed that it wasn't intentional but admitted that the collision was his mistake

Kyle Larson was running in between Brad Keselowski and Trackhouse Racing driver, Daniel Suarez, in a three-wide formation at the time. Just around turn 4, a nudge from Suarez's #99 machine caused Larson's Chevy to spin out and run into the outside wall. Hamlin, who was lapping Larson, had no other option but to run into the HMS speedster.

Here is a video of the contact:

Nevertheless, Hamlin felt that he had stomped the gas pedal too hard. Reflecting on the same, the #11 driver told Bob Pockras

"It was my mistake, I gassed up too soon and ran into the back of him. Luckily, everybody held onto it."

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Daniel Suarez, however, wasn't sure what happened during the race. The Trackhouse sensation was running low to the left of Larson's Camaro when the incident took place. He watched the replay after the race was over and said,

"I noticed that the 6 was the one that was on the outside...he had like a quarter of a car from the wall because he was trying to press down the 5 and then the 5 had another quarter of a car to the 6 trying to press me down."

Suarez further explained that he was not expecting Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski to be that close to the outside wall.

"I am the one that made contact with the 5 and I take responsibility for that but I felt like they were lower than what I was expecting," he added.

While Brad Keselowski and Daniel Suarez wound up in the top 10, Denny Hamlin fell back to 24th and Kyle Larson finished 34th.

Kyle Larson revealed what he could have done differently at Iowa

Kyle Larson felt that he could have stayed patient knowing that his car was the fastest in the qualifyings. According to him, going three-wide in between Keselowski and Suarez was an unnecessary move that backfired almost instantly.

"I could have not gone to the middle and been more patient knowing how fast my car was and knowing who I was around," Larson said, as reported by motorsport.com. "I wanted to get as many cars as I could in the beginning of that run. It probably just ended up biting me."

"I had room. I mean I made it to the exit of the corner and I'm not sure if Suarez got loose underneath me or what happened. But he got into my left-rear and got me out of control," he added.

Adding to Larson's miseries, NASCAR penalized the number 5 crew for sending too many members to fix the car after the wreck. As a result, Larson resumed the race over 30 laps behind the field and finished 34 laps behind Ryan Blaney, who won the 350-lap event.

Despite winning Stage 1 and leading 80 laps in the race, the Elk Grove native was overthrown from the points lead. Currently, he is 8 points behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott. Larson's next race is at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on June 23.