Not just the drivers, but the entire race team needs to have their A-game on when it comes to playoff races. The #11 team is usually one of the leaders when it comes to putting out quick pit stops, but in a crucial race at Kansas, they are yet to get their act right.

Denny Hamlin, with a solid stage 1 run, entered the pit road with the hopes of retaining or gaining track position. However, his pit crew didn’t help his cause, as one of the pit crew members held Hamlin up. The crew member wasn’t sure if the tire had set in well on the right rear.

This muck-up saw him drop from P4 to P15 coming off the pit road, and it’s fair to say the driver of the #11 car was frustrated. “I cannot lose track position. PLEASE.” Hamlin sent out a message to his team. In reply, his crew chief, Chris Gabehart, asked his driver to focus on the task at hand instead of complaining on the radio. “Understood. Focus on making it up, not on what happened. Let’s go.”

Track position is indeed crucial at venues like Kansas Speedway. Not just in the sense of racing for a win, but also in snagging the crucial stage points that Denny Hamlin did in the stage 1 run. It will be interesting to see if the JGR driver can reclaim his lost spot on the grid.

Denny Hamlin laments the missed opportunity for a win at Kansas

By all means, Hamlin should’ve been the top contender for a win at the 1.5-mile intermediate track that has fared him well in the past. In the Next-Gen era, he didn’t finish outside of the top 5 places until today, and it was because of the muck-up by his pit crew. In the first stage of the pit cycle, the No. 11 had a slow stop because of the right rear tire, and he was quick to remind his team of the detrimental effects of losing track position.

However, this wasn’t the only error that dampened his run during the race. Another pit stop towards the end of Stage 2 saw Hamlin get shipped to the back of the field because of a loose wheel. If not a win, the veteran JGR driver at least had a top-5-placed race car. So they certainly left points and position on the racetrack despite a P8 finish.

“We lost 15 sports on the pit road and had the fastest car. We came in forth and came out 15th or 20th or something like that, and you can only pass so many. I can’t do anything. I think they’ve got to get some reps and get in a rhythm and peak when it really counts here in the next couple weeks,” Hamlin said after the race.

According to Racing Insights, Hamlin lost 60 positions from where he was when he pitted to where he restarted. While the No. 11 driver was frustrated, his crew chief Gabehart backed his team to come back stronger in the upcoming races at Talladega and Charlotte Roval races.

“These are humans doing extraordinary things. They aren’t robots doing easy things. Humans don’t always perform their best, and today was an off day for those guys. There’s a lot on the line, and my group’s on average, been the best pit crew on pit road all year. I’d put them up against anybody.” Chris Gabehart said this to NASCAR.com.

A pit stop can certainly make or break a driver’s fortune, and Denny Hamlin would want his team to perform at its best going into the Talladega race.