NASCAR penalize Denny Hamlin for his contact with Ross Chastain at Phoenix

Denny Hamlin's coming together with Ross Chastain at last weekend's Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway has landed the Joe Gibbs Racing driver in trouble with the authorities.

NASCAR, who seemed to be in no mood to let the teams and drivers play with the rulebook in any way, handed out penalties to the #11 Toyota Camry TRD driver. Penalties were given inflicted upon all four Hendrick Motorsports teams, as well as the #31 crew from Kaulig Racing.

Hamlin has been fined a total of $50,000, as well as a 25-point deduction from the regular season. The penalties for the 42-year-old veteran of the sport come after he was seen intentionally making contact with Ross Chastain's #1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in turn 1 at Phoenix Raceway. This sent the latter into the outside wall.

This resulted in both Denny Hamlin and Chastain losing positions during the restart, with them finishing in P23 and P24, respectively. Section 4.4 (NASCAR Member Code of Conduct) of the governing body's rulebook states:

"Attempting to manipulate the outcome of the race or championship and wrecking or spinning another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from competition as a result. Actions NASCAR finds to be detrimental to stock racing or NASCAR."

Along with Denny Hamlin's misfortunes with the governing body, Hendrick Motorsports and Kaulig Racing also found themselves hit with L2-level penalties. They did so for altering supplier-sourced parts.

NASCAR senior vice president elaborates on Denny Hamlin's penalty

NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer elaborated on the reasons behind the governing body's actions. He stated that the incident was an individual occurrence. He also mentioned Hamlin's admission of guilt on his podcast, and said:

“When you look at this one this past weekend, we would have viewed that as a racing incident, but then it’s 24 hours later and you have a competitor that has gone on a podcast, which I will say, we’re delighted that Denny has a podcast. We think that’s great, interacts with the fans, but when you start admitting that you have intentionally done something that would compromise the results of the end of the race, then that rises to a level that we’re going to get involved."

With the penalties in full effect by NASCAR, it has been made clear that allls teams and drivers will be treated equally if the governing body finds discrepancies worth acting upon.