Denny Hamlin thinks Alex Bowman took ‘high road’ with Bubba Wallace after early mistake at Chicago

Alex Bowman wasn’t upset that Bubba Wallace doored him on the cool-down lap following his victory in Sunday’s Grant Park 165 Chicago Street Race.

In fact, Bowman acknowledged that he had it coming after spinning Wallace out in Stage 1.

“He barely hit me, everything was fine, and it was plenty deserved,” Bowman said. “… I’d be mad, too. I ruined his day. I just messed up. I’ve been embarrassed about it since it happened. I tried to call him during the rain delay, and I shot him a text.”

Speaking on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast, Denny Hamlin said that Bowman was simply taking the “high road” with his comments.

“I think Bowman’s taking the high road there,” Hamlin said. “He’s feeling good [after winning] and I think he’s taking the high road there knowing that he made the mistake early on and he’s trying to repay that mistake through comments in the media. That would be my feeling and gut on it.”

We now await possible punishment from NASCAR, which came down hard on Carson Hocevar for intentionally spinning Harrison Burton under caution last Sunday at Nashville. NASCAR fined Hocevar $50,000 and docked 25 driver points.

Denny Hamlin predicts NASCAR decision on Bubba Wallace penalty

Could Wallace face a similar penalty from NASCAR? Hamlin isn’t so sure how NASCAR will view the Wallace incident to Hocevar’s, seeing as one came at a time where safety vehicles were on the racetrack, and the other happened after the race had ended.

“I don’t know how NASCAR is gonna view it,” Hamlin said. “So how this is different than Carson Hocevar is that one is under yellow. And under yellow, that means that there’s an unsafe condition and there are safety vehicles on the racetrack. At the end of the race, there are no safety vehicles on the racetrack and it’s not an unsafe condition. There’s not a drivers safety issue. So, I don’t know how they’ll view it and the other also is that Carson spun someone under yellow and it cost them positions and damage to their car. So, that hurt Harrison Burton for the rest of the race. This was the race is over, he took a swipe at Bowman, and I think Bowman underplayed it a little bit in the media.

“But yeah, I don’t know how they’ll view it. I think they could go either way with this because it is different than wrecking someone under caution. Think people that don’t like Bubba will try to draw conclusions into it one way and people that support Bubba will see it in an entirely different way. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, but certainly, I think they are different simply because of the safety aspect of being under caution versus being at the end of the race. There’s no safety vehicles out there, everyone’s running slow speeds. He’ll probably get a talking to, maybe get a fine or something, but that’ll be all I think comes from this.”