Denny Hamlin had surprising reason for picking inside lane on Kansas overtime restart

Denny Hamlin was examining the final laps of last weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway, and he feels like he let one slip away from him.

As we all know now, Kyle Larson defeated Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds to get the win, but it was Hamlin who led when the final caution came out, and brought the field to green for the final restart. During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin discussed why he chose the inside line over the outside, and why he had a bit of regret.

“Probably the caution coming out. Certainly, I would’ve second-guessed, or done something different, when it came to choosing lanes,” Hamlin revealed, regarding whether the final caution or final restart was more detrimental. “You know, the conversation, and what happened on our radio, for the No. 11 car, is (Hamlin’s crew chief) Chris [Gabehart] told me that it was close to 50/50, on choosing the inside or the outside. I wanted to choose the outside. I didn’t say this to him, but I wanted to choose the outside because it just felt like I was you know, in a green-white-checkered situation, the P3 guy, most times, will split three-wide bottom. What that does, is what it did to me.

“I’m on the bottom, and he told me, the key moment for me was when he said, the No. 5 car, by the numbers, probably will choose the outside. And so at that point, I’m like, ‘Good. I don’t want Kyle starting behind me.’ I know he’s going to split three-wide. Whoever he splits three-wide, is going to go backwards, really quick.”

Evidently, Larson’s positioning made all the difference, but Hamlin was still wondering what could’ve been if he chose the outside instead last weekend.

“I would’ve absolutely rather have chosen the outside, and gotten the push,” Hamlin added. “Now, if Larson was to choose the outside behind me, he likely would’ve tried to split me, if he wanted to start fourth to the outside. But I feel like, it’s easier to defend the right side than it is the left side, with the apron and everything that’s going on. So lesson learned, for sure.

“You just kind of put this one in the notebook of like, remember this. Remember these decisions, and certainly there was one, Daytona 500, back in 2017. I had control of the green-white-checkered, and chose the wrong lane. Certainly, I chose the wrong lane, this time, as well.”

Alas, NASCAR will return to Kansas Speedway later this season. You can bet Denny Hamlin has this one tucked away in his mind, ready to use what he’s learned if the situation ever arises again for the No. 11.