Denny Hamlin laments his too-aggressive racing at Phoenix as he slips up while fighting his driver Tyler Reddick

Just felt like there was one or two cars, the 20 at times, the 45 at times. The 20 really probably had the best car, best driver all day. The 45 was right there and then kinda us. Unfortunately, just the restart I spun out and that was it had to go to the back with 100 to go and that was all we had. Yeah I got beat on a few restarts by the 45 on the high side so I decided to try to keep pushing the entry as much as I could and just couldn’t hold my line there. Hamlin told Fox Sports about the incidnet.

Still, the veteran was able to mount a comeback and secure a top-10 finish marking the return of Toyota that struggled in the first few races of the season. All Joe Gibbs Racing cars and Reddick led laps on Sunday in Toyota, showcasing the major improvement they have made after a disappointing start to the year.

Denny Hamlin gave a positive verdict of the new Next-Gen Aero package

The Phoenix race was the first Cup event of the 2024 season to use the new Next-Gen car aero package that has been in development. The drivers were given 55 minutes of practice to test and most weren’t happy about it. It didn’t fix the traffic problem in short track as expected.

But after the race Hamlin had some positive reviews about it. He pointed out that though it wasn’t the perfect solution, it was better than the old package. Hamlin urged the sanctioning body to make a few more changes to end the issue forever.

I’m not super disappointed for sure, [I’m] overall optimistic that we found something that was a little better coming to this racetrack than what we had. Just need to be a smidge better then we’ll be right there. Hamlin said.