NASCAR Deems Controversial Richmond Restart Decision ‘Right’ to Claim Denny Hamlin ‘Earned’ the Advantage

NASCAR has now officially shared their verdict regarding the controversial restart by Denny Hamlin during the Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway. Speaking in an interview on FOX, Elton Sawyer, NASCAR VP for Competition, stressed that they made the right call by not intervening with the race.

What’s surprising is the fact that they had all the necessary resources, data, and evidence that could have penalized Hamlin. But owing to the urgency of the situation, they had to make a split-second call, one they felt was the correct one. Thus, Hamlin bended the restart rules and got away with it at Richmond.

NASCAR justifies their judgment call on the controversial restart during the Toyota Owners 400 race

While the fans and community wanted clarity from NASCAR regarding their stance on the controversial decision, Sawyer’s comments have stirred further confusion. He stated, “If you look at the last restart there obviously was in overtime. The 11 is come off pit road first, he’s earned the right to be the control vehicle.”

Moreover, he was confident that they made the right call, despite the video evidence suggesting that Hamlin did gain an unfair advantage. “Once we noticed that there was question with the restart, we were looking at all our available resources, SMT data, we’re looking into replay monitor, and at the time when you got to make a split second decision, it’s a bang-bang call at the end of the race. With the evidence and the information we had in front of us, we made the call we felt at that time was correct.”

He further explained, “Now, I want to be clear, if we were in Lap 50 and we officiate the race from Lap 1 to 400 plus, we end up in those situations in overtime, we’re gonna officiate the race the same way.” There were a lot of ifs and buts in the clarification, which certainly didn’t help NASCAR’s cause in defending its judgment.

As far as Denny Hamlin is concerned, he seems to have had enough of the drama and has asked the fans to get over the saga.

Denny Hamlin believes the quick pit stop won him the Richmond race, not the restart

Just imagine Martin Truex Jr or Joey Logano pulling off a quicker pit stop than Hamlin at Richmond Raceway. There was a huge potential that either of the two could’ve won the race, but the pit crew of the #11 JGR car were on their A-game and handed their driver the advantage to go on and win the race. However, one cannot deny the fact that Hamlin did jump the restart line, which handed him an unfair advantage.

It was sort of expected that his win would garner a lot of attention and drama. But it seems like Hamlin is now irked by the complaints and flak he has received over the last two days. Taking to his X account, he wrote, “I sure wish someone would come out with a new paint scheme or something. Ain’t y’all tired of talking about the same thing for 48 hours now? Our team won the race because of the pit crew. Not the restart. Y’all just sour. GET OVER IT!”

Hamlin already has a reputation as NASCAR’s villain, and his antics from Richmond seem to have garnered him more negative attention.

Read More: Did Denny Hamlin’s Unprecedented Stardom Rigged NASCAR’s Disputed Decision at Richmond?