Denny Hamlin eviscerates Hendrick fanboys blaming him for William Byron loss: ‘What the f*ck are people watching’

William Byron had to play defense during the closing laps of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Ross Chastain was charging hard and on top of that, Byron had to deal with lap drivers. One of those drivers was Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin had forfeited his P3 spot on Lap 389 to come down pit road for more fuel. Fighting to get back on the lead lap in the event of a late caution, Hamlin went by Byron as he was defending against Chastain. There were Hendrick Motorsports fans who felt Hamlin made it hard on Byron and cost him the win. Hamlin responded to them on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast, calling them “idiots.”

“Speaking of HMS fanboys, I’m getting some mentions that I’m to blame for Byron losing? What the f*ck are people watching? I was behind him when he stepped on his d*ck,” Hamlin said. “… I was behind him. He got stuck behind the 22, got loose in [Turns] 3 and 4, the 1 [Chastain] came with a massive run because he got loose behind the 22 and I went by both of them. By the way, I lifted into Turn 1 to let them race. If you look when I got beside the 24 and here comes the 1 and they got three-wide, I lifted into 1 because I’m like, ‘I ain’t getting in the middle of this. I’ll pass him off of Turn 2.’

“What are these people watching? And are they that dumb? How can I hold him up when I’m behind him? How can people be that dumb? If you said that, you’re an idiot. That is just asinine. You think I give a f*ck at that point? I just pitted with 10 laps to go trying to get back on the lead lap in case a caution comes, then maybe I stay out because I got right side tires and I squeeze some sort of finish out of this frickin’ day.”

Denny Hamlin, William Byron were class of the field at Charlotte

By that point in the race, Hamlin was just riding around praying for a caution to come. He and Byron were the class of the field for a majority of the night, but a fuel can issue on the Lap 348 caution left him well low on fuel to finish the race. Hamlin finished a disappointing 16th.

Byron did not mention Hamlin being an issue for him. He did, however, call out Joey Logano — another lap car — for holding him up.

“Yeah, for sure. He [Logano] was doing the usual,” Byron said, via Frontstretch. “What I didn’t like was he just kept moving around [Turns] 3 and 4. I don’t know what he was doing. Really, I think, was in traffic a lot that run. The 45 [Tyler Reddick] was running hard, and we lost a chunk there. It all just kind of added up.”