Denny Hamlin and Kyle Petty have locked horns on many occasions in the past. Hamlin’s on-track actions against Kyle Larson at Pocono Raceway a few weeks ago fueled the fire between the pair once again, with Petty going on a rant against the JGR driver after the race.
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However, now that a couple of weeks have passed, Petty seems to have taken kindly to Hamlin. The NASCAR veteran recently revealed how highly he is ranking Hamlin going into the final stretch of the season, hailing the three-time Daytona 500 winner’s incredible consistency compared to other drivers in the garage.
Kyle Petty is impressed by Denny Hamlin despite Pocono rant
While speaking on Motorsports on NBC, Petty was asked which driver according to him was trending up at this point in the season. The analyst replied, “Yeah, listen, I think up for me, I got a lot of guys. Well, I got Hamlin up and stayin’ in the Joe Gibbs’ camp. Hamlin just has a way of just being there… Second, third, fourth just hammering it out being there.”
“A little bit of controversy of Pocono, but he’s just there, like Truex has been the dominant teammate, but they are head and shoulders above Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs right now, so I look at him up.”
Petty also added some other drivers to his list, saying, “Chase Elliott is trending. Alex Bowman is trending. Daniel Suarez is trending right now because they’re trying to get into the bubble. So they are trending up for me because they’ve been so bad all year long. But I’m still not ready to invest a lot into it.”
What did Petty say about Hamlin after the Larson incident at Pocono?
After Pocono, Petty’s major argument about Hamlin was that the JGR driver did not showcase any remorse for his actions against his friend Larson after seemingly ramming him into the wall. He stated, “He puts himself in the victim position. You’re not the victim here, Denny Hamlin...”
Adding, “…‘Denny is always right.’ People that are always right don’t have remorse. They just go ahead and live their life in their world, and that’s what Denny does…”
Both Petty and Hamlin have been critical of each other in the past as well. A couple of years back, Hamlin called Petty “not a very informative” analyst, saying he did not know anything about the drivers he was criticizing.
So these two arguing back and forth against each other is nothing new. While it may be interesting to see Petty speaking about Hamlin in a positive light, this should not surprise long-term fans of the sport. After all, Petty, like Hamlin, does not shy away from saying it exactly like he feels, something he did after Pocono as well.
