Angry words escaped the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday after Kyle Larson proposedly jumped the first overtime restart to have an advantage over Ryan Blaney. Larson had taken the front row spot that Keselowski had left when he broke from the field to refuel his car. Opinions on whether the Hendrick star jumped the restart have been extreme so far but the factual data has added clarity.
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Denny Hamlin went through the SMT data from the restart on Actions Detrimental and broke it down for his listeners. He said that both Larson and Blaney fired their cars at the exact same time. But what reflected the image that the former had jumped the restart was the fact that his car was going faster than Blaney’s by a slight margin at the time.
DH pulled up the SMT data to see if Larson really jumped the restart.
“They fired at the same time. At the SAME EXACT TIME.” pic.twitter.com/Z1qg92ITqo
— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) July 22, 2024
Hamlin said, “Since they fire at the same time, Kyle’s got that one mile per hour advantage the whole time. But again this doesn’t matter at all. The No. 12 could’ve been all ahead of him entering Turn 1 and the No. 5 was gonna blow his doors off.”
The reason behind that is the huge upper hand a driver gets by driving on the Oval’s bottom lane. Larson had cleverly chosen to line up behind Keselowski, who’d been at the bottom, knowing well that he might run out of fuel.
Hamlin continued, “It is one of the only race tracks that we have where the bottom is significantly at an advantage. But yeah, the No. 5 just rode half a car back and then just kept rolling that one mile per hour all the way until they both fired at the same time.” That solves the confusion that has been clouding the skies since the Larson crossed the checkered flag in pole position.
Veteran spotters still believe Larson jumped the restart
Spotters TJ Majors and Freddie Kraft expressed on Door, Bumper, Clear that Larson had indeed jumped the restart. Their belief was backed by the words of a retired racer – whom they wouldn’t name – and his thoughts. TJ said, “He had an interesting comment. He said, ‘He jumped the start but not enough to get penalized.’ And I was like, ‘What the f**k does that mean?”
Regardless of the flurry of opinions that blow across now, it is the data-backed verdict of NASCAR that will stand at the end of the day. And that was to crown Larson. As explained by Hamlin, the sanctioning body doesn’t seem to have gotten the answer wrong this time. Defending champion Ryan Blaney might not necessarily be happy with the outcome but he has a two-week break to get over it.
