Never good when the team owner isn’t happy.
Of course Denny Hamlin isn’t your ordinary team owner. Along with being co-owner of 23XI Racing alongside one of the greatest athletes of all time, NBA legend Michael Jordan, he’s also one of the winningest NASCAR Cup Series drivers of all time, currently sitting at 11th on the all-time wins list with 57 victories.
So when he speaks, it’s probably a good idea for his drivers to listen.
23XI Racing is currently winless on the season, though Tyler Reddick in the #45 car appears likely to make the playoffs based on points, regardless of whether he gets a win (and the automatic playoff berth that comes with it) or not.
Bubba Wallace, however, is much closer to the missing the playoffs. The driver of the #23 car is currently the final driver in the playoff field, which means that a win from any driver not currently in the playoffs would bump Bubba out.
With a race at Daytona to end the regular season, where pretty much anybody can win on any given day, as well as a couple of road courses before the playoffs where guys like AJ Allmendinger and Michael McDowell are always strong contenders, any of those races could leave Bubba on the outside looking in when the playoffs start. Not to mention there are still some strong teams without a win this year, including Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, and the always-polarizing Carson Hocevar, who could all easily win a race and jump Bubba in the standings.
That’s why it’s so important for Bubba to maximize his points in every race – and why Denny Hamlin doesn’t feel that he did that at the Chicago street course race this past weekend.
In the closing laps of the race, the #23 car was locked in a heated battle with longtime rival Alex Bowman in the #48 car for Hendrick Motorsports. Bowman was on fresher tires than Bubba, and was trying to get around him, but Bubba wasn’t giving up easy.
The two went back and forth for the position, beating and banging on each other, for nearly an entire lap around the street course, before Bubba finally got past Bowman and attempted to slide in front of him. But there wasn’t quite enough room, and Bubba ended up hooking himself on the nose of the #48 car and spinning himself out, resulting in a disappointing 28th place finish. (Bowman would go on to finish 8th).
And Denny doesn’t think any of it was necessary.
The team owner discussed the incident during this week’s episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, and was clearly frustrated that his driver didn’t just let Bowman go and try to salvage the best finish he could, especially since Bowman was on newer tires and was inevitably going to get the spot anyway:
“They were just playing grab a– with the 48 and ended up getting the bad end of it…
The 48, I just don’t understand really kind of what he did wrong there… The 48 is on newer tires. You’re just not going to hold that back in six laps. It’s just impossible. You’re not going to do it. We saw the speed difference between new and old tires. You gotta just let it go. Get the day that you need.”
Denny made it pretty clear that he doesn’t have a problem with the way Bowman raced Bubba, but that he thinks his driver needs to do a better job of thinking about the bigger picture, which is obviously making the playoffs:
“Do you want to be in the playoffs or do you not? You can’t really cough up 20 spots with six laps to go. You gotta just take your losses when you got ’em…
I just think that all those points are going to matter. I just believe the best way to do it is just take the day that’s given to you. You just can’t take yourself out. That’s what the deciding factor is.”
But it also sounds like this isn’t a new frustration that Denny has with his driver and team:
“The 23 team is way faster than…the cars they are all around in points. But they just don’t execute as good as the others. The other guys are 10 spots worse on average running position it feels like… They shouldn’t be in this position.”
He also acknowledges that Bubba’s had some poor finishes due to things outside of his control, like mechanical issues or wrecks not of his own making. But Denny also believes that the team needs to do a better job at capitalizing on the things they CAN control:
“Everyone has these where you controlled the outcome and it led to a bad outcome. And I thought this was one that, slowing things down and putting the big picture into play probably would have been the better idea.”
Denny sums up his frustration with the team:
“Our cars are fast. Just gotta figure out how to finish where you’re capable of finishing. And wherever that number is on that day, you gotta live with it. You can’t make it worse.”
Solid advice. And it’s probably a good idea for Bubba to listen.
