Denny Hamlin: William Byron made a ‘low percentage move’ to wreck Ryan Blaney

During the Goodyear 400 at Darlington, William Byron made a bad move and helped wreck Ryan Blaney. Denny Hamlin sees it that way. The NASCAR driver was once again recapping the weekend on his podcast.

Byron was three-wide with Blaney on the outside and Martin Truex Jr. between them. He went low into turns one and two and the track shot him up towards the wall. Byron kind of air pushed Truex and that went to Blaney and then there was a wreck.

Denny Hamlin thinks it was a racing thing, no big deal, really. Unless you’re Blaney. Still, as Hamlin pointed out on his Actions Detrimental podcast, Byron is to blame for the incident.

“It was William’s responsibility to keep his car low, and if that means that he had to lift, then he should have lifted,” Hamlin said of the restart. “Again, he made just a very low percentage move, it just has a very low success rate of going down there and clearing and if you don’t clear it’s going to cause a huge stack up off the corner. If it wasn’t the 19 [Truex Jr.] and the 12 [Blaney] that was going to wreck it was going to be us, the guys that were behind. Because I think I was right behind the 17 [Chris Buescher]. The 17 hit the 19, I hit the 17. It caused a lot of damage for our 11 car for sure.”

Now, does that mean Denny Hamlin is pi--ed off and looking for revenge? No.

“It’s just a racing thing,” the driver said. “The 24 was definitely the one at fault but it’s not like [Byron] ran into someone and caused them to wreck. He just made a move that was inevitably going to end in a wreck.”

Denny Hamlin earns another solid finish

Despite not leading a single lap at Darlington, Denny Hamlin came away from the Goodyear 400 P4. It wasn’t a race where he had winning speed, but he had enough to get himself toward the front when he needs to.

Hamlin has a win and two top-5 finishes in the last three races. When the Cup Series gets back from the All-Star week, he will have another good shot at a win and a great finish in Charlotte.

This is the best start to a season for Hamlin since at least 2020 and likely since 2010. Getting through the summer stretch with solid finishes and another win or two is the least Hamlin and the 11 team can do.

Denny Hamlin got some damage and never got to challenge for the lead. He’s moving onto the next one and will try to win another short track race at North Wilkesboro this weekend. He’s dominated on the short tracks this season and could have another stellar performance up his sleeve.