Denny Hamlin and his #11 car were rapid on Sunday. However, they only fell short by about 1.312 seconds to eventual winner Ryan Blaney, when all 160 laps of the Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono finally wound down.

The big difference? The Tricky Triangle’s grand 2.5-mile aero equalizer. And let’s not forget, another tremendous Team Penske pit strategy, this time by Jonathan Hassler and his #12 crew at Pocono. They helped Blaney to his 12th NASCAR Cup Series victory, and only his second on the racetrack.

On the other hand, the track record holder, Hamlin, faced some contrasting circumstances. The type that made Door Bumper Clear host & spotter Brett Griffin hand out one of his controversial takes on none other than the #11 crew chief himself, Chris Gabehart.

Denny Hamlin’s crew chief gamble backfires at the Tricky Triangle

This isn’t the first time a Team Penske driver has capitalized on Denny’s misfortunes in 2024. Only a couple of weeks ago, Joey Logano outlasted him & everyone else as he cruised to a win at Nashville with some daredevil fuel strategy, courtesy of CC Paul Wolfe. Denny finished inside the top 5 in both stages, and the Penske #22 Ford was nowhere to be seen. Logano did not look like a contender in that race until the very final laps. Similar to this Sunday’s Pocono race where his teammate, Ryan Blaney, earned no stage points. But a shuffle in track position due to some unforeseeable series of events placed the #12 at the forefront, with 44 laps to go.

First, the #11 team decided to stay out in Stage 2, whereas the #12 pitted right before the end of the final stage cycle for 4 fresh tires and fuel. They could only pit one more time in the next stage. This meant that Blaney & Hassler would probably have to gamble on fuel if the race exceeded its scheduled 160 laps. Thankfully for the #12 team, there were only 4 cautions in the final cycle and the race did not require any extra overtime laps.

On the Stage 3 restart, Blaney rolled off in P2 behind Chris Buescher, who also brought his car down pit lane, late in Stage 2. Denny Hamlin needed additional servicing under the stage caution and fell to 15th at the time of green. From then on it was all about race strategy and just a little luck playing the favor for Ryan Blaney. But that wasn’t all.

Another strategic mistake by Denny Hamlin’s #11 team resulted in them having to fight hard to gain track position with the laps winding down. Although Denny got past Alex Bowman to claim a well-deserving P2 with just five laps to go, Brett Griffin recently discussed on DBC a crucial factor that may have played some part in Hamlin falling only one second short of Blaney for his 8th Pocono win.

Clint Bowyer’s former spotter elaborated, “The question was who was going to pit where? Who was going to take stage points? I mean, I feel like (Chris) Gabehart kinda gave one away you know going after stage win versus going after the race win.”

Nevertheless, swiftly changing the topic to the other incident that took out almost the entire back half of the field with just 40 laps to go, Griffin said, “And I mean, look, Gabehart’s one of the brightest guys in the garage. But it just came down to strategy right up until Corey LaJoie dumped Kyle Busch and from there on, there were some things.”

Indeed, Corey LaJoie‘s incident with Kyle Busch shook things up quite a bit. However, the caution before this incident was the one that truly set the tone for Hamlin’s unsuccessful advance on Blaney’s bumper.

Can the #11 team redeem themselves at the Brickyard?

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After Todd Gilliland ended his day early after contact with the wall due to a broken brake rotor to bring out Caution 5/8 at the Great American Getaway 400 on Lap 116, Denny Hamlin had already made his way into the top 10 when all cars came down pit road as the majority of the leaders took only two tires for the final run. Exiting pit road, Blaney was 2nd, while Hamlin was 4th. Kyle Larson led the pack, and Chase Elliott separated the #12 and the #11 set to start in the third position.

With 44 to go, Blaney took the lead away from Kyle Larson because NASCAR issued a speeding penalty on the #5 and sent it to the back, along with Chase Elliott, Daniel Suarez & pole-winner Ty Gibbs. All of their cars violated the regulated pit road speeds on the confusing Section 7 of Pocono’s pit road.

This allowed Elliott & Larson’s Hendrick teammate, Alex Bowman to join Hamlin & Blaney on the front row to battle it out for the rest of the race. Although Denny possessed one of the fastest cars on Sunday, Blaney’s Ford Mustang’s aero advantage was evident on the tri-oval as he pulled away for a stellar lead and held off the #11 and #48 to score his second win of the 2024 season.

Hamlin had a few grievances after the race. He fell behind Bowman and his teammate Byron on the final yellow, which was brought out with Ty Gibbs’s #54 leaking engine fluid with no more than 26 laps to go. After eventually overtaking Bowman on the final few circuits, he went on to tell the media, “I knew that was the critical part of the end of the race — try to come out of the restart second — and I just didn’t do a good job of trying to clear Alex, and he did a great job clearing me… I knew I was sitting there at that point, waiting on the tires to wear out so I could make a move. You get so aero tight at this racetrack that I need those long runs for the field to start spreading out to make moves, and it was just too late.”

He elaborated on that sentiment further on Actions Detrimental when he said, “I just think that at that point I needed the race to go full green, the 40 laps, or just needed things to work out on restarts, and neither one did.”

Regardless, it was a stellar performance for both of those drivers. Ryan Blaney solidified Team Penske’s Sunday dominance at Pocono with their 5th race win in 7 weeks. Denny Hamlin scored his first Top-5 in just as many weeks. Next week, these high-speed devils will head to Indianapolis for the return of the Brickyard 400. Will Denny Hamlin’s track test experience from June help him out on another flat track the same size as Pocono? Let us know in the comments below.