The Next Gen car has really shaken up the order in NASCAR. Drivers who were once considered good at a particular type of racetrack are no longer that dominant. Take the case of Chase Elliott at road courses. There was a time when he was so dominant on road courses that he quickly climbed up on the all-time road course winners list. But for now, he isn’t even in the top tier of drivers who are good at road courses.
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This is what Denny Hamlin recently claimed on Actions Detrimental. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver revealed who he thinks are the drivers that are currently better than the rest on road courses.
“I think that there’s five that’s probably gonna jump out at me when I look at it. I’m gonna say, Byron, Bell, Ty Gibbs, Reddick. I think those are the ones that will always be the fastest,” Hamlin said. “Then you have the next tier. I’m gonna put the next tier as Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson.”
Speaking about Chase Elliott, a driver who has 7 wins on road courses, a driver who is second to names like Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, the #11 driver said, “Elliott, I would probably put in the second tier now as far as speed wise. It’s hard to argue that.”
“We can talk about old stats from the Gen 6 car, but in this generation car, he’s in the next tier.”
The Hendrick driver that really impressed Denny Hamlin at COTA
While it was William Byron who swept all the headlines from COTA because of his win, followed by Kyle Larson, who won a day before in Xfinity, Denny Hamlin was left particularly impressed by another HMS driver.
And that wasn’t Chase Elliott who finished in 16th place.
It was Alex Bowman, of which Hamlin said, “Maybe the most impressive run from anyone I saw over the entire weekend. He legitimately drove from where he started and passed everyone to get to the position where he was at. He did have a pit stop at the end when he jumped a few cars.”
In fact, Denny Hamlin went as far as to claim that Alex Bowman was “right there” in terms of speed with the race winner, William Byron.
