Denny Hamlin believes Ross Chastain was to blame for one of Chase Elliott’s numerous incidents at Atlanta over the weekend.
The two collided on the track on Sunday, and Hamlin called Chastain out for spinning Elliott, as he looked into the contact between two of his top rivals in the NASCAR Cup Series during the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“Elliott got spun out by Ross. Ross bumped him into Turn 3. I did see that one,” Hamlin stated. “Can’t do that to the hometown boy.”
While Hamlin made light of the situation with his hometown boy comment, he went deeper into the rabbit hole on the incident, explaining how the Trackhouse Racing wheelman was able to spin the Hendrick Motorsports star on Sunday.
“Chase is racing, and Ross is jammed up his rear-end,” Hamlin added. “Chase, he’s got to make moves, depending on what’s going on in front of him. If he’s got people checking up. If you don’t give the guy in front of you room entering the corner, like everyone — in that part of the pack, very little of the field is actually running wide open. Everyone’s lifting a little bit entering the corner.
“So you’ve always got to give your competitor a little room for error there, because we’re not at a track like Daytona or Talladega, where everyone’s just stuck and you can enter right on their rear bumper. So it was a stack-up. Obviously not intentional.”
In the end, Chastain would come home P7 on the afternoon, watching his teammate Daniel Suarez pull off a miraculous victory. As for Elliott, he salvaged a P15 finish for a hectic afternoon, one where he seemingly found trouble wherever it was on the track. As for Hamlin, the veteran racer finished P23, after getting collected in a major wreck late in the race.
Regardless of how their hometown driver was treated, Elliott’s fans had an amazing time at Atlanta, as they were treated to one of the best NASCAR races in recent memory. Perhaps Elliott will have more success at the track when the series returns to Atlanta for their second date of the season.
For now, Elliott, Hamlin and Chastain are turning their attention to Sin City, as the Cup Series takes their campaign to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend. There’s bound to be some more thrilling action at the track, as all but two drivers look to lock themselves into the playoffs.
Time will tell if there’s any retaliation from Chase Elliott to Ross Chastain, but Denny Hamlin will be watching along with us to see what goes down in the coming weeks.
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