Denny Hamlin reacts to scary Alex Bowman Michigan wreck, how quickly NASCAR threw red flag

Alex Bowman hit the wall in a nasty wreck at Michigan International Speedway this past weekend. When NASCAR threw the red flag immediately, Denny Hamlin knew it had to be a vicious accident.

Thankfully, Bowman was alright afterwards, but it was one of the more violent wrecks we’ve seen this season in the Cup Series. Hamlin took some time to react to the moment on the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

“I knew it had to be a big lick, because they wouldn’t even let us go through this crime scene,” Hamlin stated. “The caution came out for us, I think I was somewhere on the back stretch, and we were stopped right after the start-finish-line.

“So, at that point, when it goes red that quickly, I’m like, ‘Oh, must’ve had a big one.’ I point myself out to look at the screen to see the replay, and I was like, ‘Whoa, that was a big hit.’”

While Bowman was able to walk out of the car under his own power, Hamlin believes he’ll be feeling that impact for quite some time moving forward. The victor at Michigan even elaborated and stated he still has some wrist pain from an accident at Daytona earlier this season, so it might just be something the Hendrick Motorsports wheelman has to deal with now.

“You certainly feel it more so the day after and the following days,” Hamlin added, regarding the impact. “Like, for instance, my wrist from Daytona — I think it’s still not right from where it was. Like, I’m so old now, it’s like, will it ever be right again? It just sucks to put any kind of pressure on it.

“It’s just — I think it’s different for everyone. People recover differently. But yeah, I mean, head-on impact like that — certainly when the Next Gen originally came out and it was solid as a rock, you know, before they started cutting up the roll cage and all kinds of stuff to get the impacts a little bit softer, you know, that could’ve been a way worse wreck than what it appears that it resulted in.”

Denny Hamlin has taken some tough licks in his NASCAR career, so he knows how Alex Bowman is feeling this week. The Hendrick star is still looking for his first win of 2025, so hopefully he isn’t banged up too bad, as he needs to get to Victory Lane to lock himself into the playoffs.