Denny Hamlin believes Ross Chastain’s attitude was the right one to have, racing Ryan Blaney for the win at Phoenix last Sunday.
When it comes to the NASCAR finale, many of the drivers will simply pull over for contenders in the Championship 4. Not Chastain. The Trackhouse star had a race to win, and he was going to do everything he could to achieve the feat.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin explained that while Chastain may have angered Blaney, that’s the right attitude to have as a driver, even if you’re not in the Championship 4.
“I agree with what he said. I’d probably say the same thing. It’s not my job to care about your championship. They put me on the track today to go win a race. So I did my job,” Hamlin stated. “That’s probably the right attitude to have.”
Additionally, Hamlin tried to see things from Chastain’s perspective, explaining how important a win was to the No. 1 Chevrolet on Sunday.
“Yeah, I think he’s racing for a win. I think it is fair,” Hamlin surmised. “It’s unfortunate, because it could play a role in the No. 5 catching the No. 12, because inevitably, if you’re the leader and you’re holding up traffic, everyone’s going to come to you. What it then allows, the No. 12 is going to burn up its stuff trying to get around the No. 1, and then the No. 5 will creep his way in, back into the picture, and then could put a move on him, if his stuff is cooler, because he’s been in open track, while he’s been catching him. But you know, you’ve got to think of this from Chastain’s perspective. He’s had a rough, with the exception of one race, up until this point at Nashville, it just has, he’s not been the Ross that we’ve come to know.
“So then he finds himself up front, because they were fast in practice, they qualified well and they drove to the front. He’s like, ‘I could win the finale. This is a big deal.’ No way he’s pulling over. Which is why he aero-blocked as hard as he did. It won him the race. How could you possibly say that that move was wrong? You can’t. It’s just, if the final four are going to continue to be out there with other cars, you’re going to deal with this. It’s part of it. It’s why you don’t have four cars out there racing at once. The other cars play a factor in sometimes who wins.”
Alas, it all worked out in the end for Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney. Nevertheless, it made for some entertaining drama on the afternoon.