Denny Hamlin suffered what was arguably the biggest heartbreak of his two-decade career at the Phoenix Raceway on Sunday. It cost him the championship he so desperately craved, and leading up to the moment it slipped away, there was a seemingly disastrous decision regarding his pit strategy.
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After choosing to change all four tires on his No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE during the overtime restart, Hamlin was outdueled for the championship by Kyle Larson, who opted for a two-tire change.
Despite the outcome, some still believe the decision was not necessarily wrong. Former crew chief Steve Letarte and former driver Kyle Petty discussed the case on NASCAR: Inside The Race.
Letarte said, “If I’m Chris Gale, I take four tires. And here’s why. Danny Hamlin has had a monster day. He has the best car. It’s 20 years in the making. Our job on top of the pit box is to deliver the opportunity for our drivers to be a superstar.”
“I really think I believe that if you run this restart five or six times, it’s a coin flip whether four tires work. And I know everybody’s going to tell me I’m wrong cuz they know the results already. But I’m telling you, if you run this data multiple times, I am not sure it’s just obvious that the four tires lose.” He gave credit to Larson for getting the job done on two tires.
Eagerly accepting Letarte’s view, Petty picked up on what he thought was the moment that separated Hamlin and Larson. He pointed out how Hamlin was almost even with Larson in the middle of one and two before continuing, “Denny got pinned in on the bottom and the cars were coming back to Denny as Larson’s lane was moving forward and that was the separation. That was the race right there for me watching the race.”
Chris Gayle defends the four-tire change
Hamlin had restarted the race from 10th place after a group of drivers took two tires. Larson was one of them, and he restarted from fifth place. The gap between the two was a bit too much for Hamlin to make up the distance. Despite this, Gayle, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief, defended his choice in a post-race interview.
Gayle said, “For a second I could think, ‘oh, well if I took two tires,’ I don’t know if that would have worked. The No. 5 was doing it, this was their only shot. Really, it was gonna dictate on just how many other cars stayed and fit in between you. I think four tires was the right call, it just didn’t get clear on the bottom, and I thought for a split second we were.”
Right or wrong, it ended up robbing Hamlin off a championship and the veteran’s dreams got crushed.
