Denny Hamlin explains near-disaster pit stop at Michigan, shouts out crew: ‘Great defensive move’

Denny Hamlin opened up about his near pit-stop disaster during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin explained what was going through his mind when he tried to exit his pit box with the fueler still attached.

“I didn’t listen well,” Denny Hamlin said. “I didn’t realize we were that close, and I just took for granted when I’m taking off here, he’s just going to walk with me out of the box. I got to do things a little differently next time.

“I waited for a beat, I’m looking in my mirror. I’m starting to see these guys leaving pit road. I’m like ‘I don’t want to go back to 10th right now waiting on fuel. Maybe we’ll put in that extra gas during the green flag stop. Screw it.’ I went way too early, and luckily Dylan grabbed the can as it was coming by. That’s such a great defensive move.”

Denny Hamlin talks about how things weren’t ‘optimized’ during Michigan race

Hamlin added, “Another point of reference for me to when to go… There’s two things, I’m looking at the fueler, I’m listening to the crew chief say when to go and also he’s giving me a hand motion. So I’ve got three points of reference. I didn’t listen to none of them.”

Had Hamlin’s team not saved him during the pit stop, it’s possible he wouldn’t have won the Michigan race. During the post-race press conference, Hamlin shared a little more on the pit stop and his handling of the No. 11 car.

“That was not the best my car was handling on that last run. I thought we were going to be a little limited by traffic,” he said. “The way our car was, we had some damage on the right side of our car from the pit road incident on that last stop. Things were not optimized, to say the least.

“But we just were very beneficial of some guys running less than 100% up front until we got there, then they raced 100%. I just worked over the guys one by one. Tried to give ’em so many different looks to surprise ’em entering the corner.”