Denny Hamlin explains decision to race for stage win instead of race win at COTA

Denny Hamlin made some gripping strategic decisions during Sunday’s race at COTA throughout the afternoon.

One of them was choosing to stay out for a stage win, instead of keeping the big picture on his mind. Evidently, it led to a more successful afternoon for the No. 11 team, according to Hamlin via the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

“At least there was something,” Hamlin said, regarding capturing a stage win and focusing on that instead of winning the race. “It’s always on the fly, because you never know what will happen with the cars in front of you, and whether they decide to pit or not. It’s a very tough balance, right? If you believe honestly that you can win the race, you need to pit. Because that’s the right call, because then you’re going to put yourself up towards the front, to start Stage Three. But we felt like you know, I’m sorry, but this is one of the very few weekends throughout the year that we will take just a base hit or a walk, as they say in baseball. I mean, it’s just because — we knew what our ceiling was. And truthfully, I thought that my race went way better than practice.

“You know, I was way off in practice, and I think I closed that gap during the race quite a bit. But we still netted more points than what we would have, you know. If you would’ve told me, ‘Hey, you can finish P6 today with no stage points, or P14 with a stage win, and 10 stage points,’ I’m going to take the P14. Because it’s just a better net. That one playoff point will live for the rest of the season. So it was the right call for us.”

It makes a lot of sense for Hamlin to deploy the strategy his team chose to go with. In the end, Hamlin ended the afternoon with the seventh-most points on the afternoon, which he’ll take ten out of ten times when going to a road course.

“That was important to us for sure,” Hamlin said, alluding to the playoff point the No. 11 team got at COTA. “And now, you can’t expect to run P26 and go win a stage, right? We had to put ourselves in the top 10, qualifying there and racing there, and when the others peeled off, that was the decision we made. So I thought it was the right one, and certainly made me feel very good about kind of how our weekend went. I hate saying that after a P14 finish, but I feel as though the No. 11 was more competitive lap time wise and racing wise than it’s been on the road course in some time. So we’ve been faster at other road courses.

“I thought Chicago was by far our fastest car, you know relative to the competition, but I felt I had — I’m sorry, I said in my head, if I can finish P15 or better, I was I was going to leave this weekend. Because it’s been — you know, road courses are by far the weakest part of the No. 11 car. You know, and it’s not the No. 11 cars, it’s the No. 11 driver. Let’s not get that twisted.”

Road courses aren’t in Denny Hamlin’s wheelhouse, but the No. 11 team still had a solid day at COTA, making the best out of an afternoon where they didn’t have their best stuff. Their strategy certainly paid off in the end.