Tyler Reddick’s eagerness to win in Las Vegas led to some ‘aggressive’ moves. Similarly, his March rival Kyle Larson was equally excited to add a third win to his Sin City glorious streak. But things went haywire for both of them and Denny Hamlin got caught in the middle of it. Pit-stop mistakes haunted both Larson and Hamlin throughout the race. Despite Larson’s best average finish (9.3) at Las Vegas, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team threw a wrench in his fast run.

But amidst his team’s slip-up, Larson took out his frustration on Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota. This was an additional setback for the 23XI Racing boss who was also having a bad pit management day. Later, Hamlin’s employee bashed Larson especially because his boss is currently on the verge of losing yet another championship bid.

Larson got in Denny Hamlin’s title path

19 years he has waited to see the glimmer of a Cup trophy – and Denny Hamlin is still waiting. His supporters are on the brink of breakdown as Hamlin’s 2024 bid is also going awry. After recovering from a disastrous Round of 16 with a top-ten in Bristol, Hamlin is struggling in the later rounds. A wild stroke of luck pulled him through Talladega. But no such luck appeared in the Round of 8 opener – a snail-slow 13.4-second pit stop was the first setback. Then an older tire strategy fell flat as Hamlin fell from 11th in stage 1 to outside the top 20 in stage 2.

And adding to his piling troubles was Kyle Larson‘s bizarre antics in Las Vegas. In Stage 1 of the South Point 400 race, Larson nudged Denny Hamlin’s car up the track near Turn 1. Freddie Kraft, Bubba Wallace’s spotter and Hamlin’s employee, fired shots at Larson’s moves. “Denny’s the first one out at minus 27…I don’t know what happened there. There was a restart there, mid-part of the race where it looked like….there was a little bit of stack-up in the front and Larson just kind of drove into Denny. It gave himself nose damage, gave damage to Denny. Then they both had just awful days at pit road for whatever reason yesterday.”

Kraft continued that there was no end to Denny Hamlin‘s misfortune – he left the race with a 27-point deficit. His championship bid took a further hit when Joey Logano won the race, shuffling up the playoff grid. “Larson still had a good, big enough cushion coming in. But Denny, like I said, one bad race will put you and the wrong guy wins…I think Joey was going to end up 4th in points, I think he’d be the cutline. And Denny would be like 15-16 out. Now he’s 27 out because of Joey winning. So you know, couple of dominoes falling the wrong way.” Yet all hope is not lost, as Hamlin has three wins and six poles at Homestead, the venue for the next race. “You’re not in a must-win situation yet – Denny’s obviously really good at Homestead.”

Despite Hamlin’s employee blaming Larson, the latter recognized that he made a mistake.

No hard feelings between rivals

Trending

Hailie Deegan Publicly Confesses “Wanting to Break Down Crying” as She Takes a Veiled Dig at AM Racing’s Failed Xfinity Experiments

“People Didn’t…Look at the Money”- Richard Petty Reveals Tobacco Titan Winston’s Hand Behind NASCAR’s Nationwide Boom

Richard Childress’ Prodigy Vows to Follow AJ Allmendinger’s Footsteps With Chase Elliott’s Feat in Sight

Frustrated Alex Bowman Throws His Phone in the Pool After Rick Hendrick and Team Sink His Championship Hopes

We all know about the iconic rivalry between the Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing icons. It started last year when Denny Hamlin nudged Kyle Larson for the victory in Pocono. However, that bitter impasse is breaking – signs appeared when both acknowledged each other’s driving prowess recently. And after Larson ‘drove into’ Hamlin in Las Vegas, the HMS driver owned up to his mistake. Hamlin was furious at first: “I get we wanna haul — but I was on the 17, I had nowhere to go,” But Larson’s response may have softened him. Immediately after pushing him, Larson apologized on his car radio.

Despite his humility, Sin City held in store some solid challenges for Larson. The No. 5 pit crew spent too much time tightening the right-rear wheel on lap 125, while the left-rear tire was ignored. So Larson had to make an additional pit stop that put him two laps down. He somehow made his way to 11th and sighed post-race: “I think I got to eighth before the green-flag cycle. I was much better than the guys in front of us and thought we would finish the end of the stage in third or fourth and then we had the biggest mess of a pit stop I think I’ve ever seen. That was just unfortunate.”

Evidently, both sides were having a particularly hard day in Sin City, while Joey Logano rejoiced on Victory Lane. Let us see what fortunes the two veteran drivers have for the rest of the playoffs.