Denny Hamlin had zero qualms with Ross Chastain racing Ryan Blaney hard, even though he wasn’t a part of the Championship 4 at Phoenix.
During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin touched on Chastain doing everything he could to keep Blaney behind him, and not simply pulling over for the Championship 4 driver, explaining how he was able to do so.
“Blaney, he says a lot on the radio when he’s racing. If things don’t go his way, he certainly gets upset pretty quickly. But he’s upset because he feels Chastain is backing him up to the No. 5 car, which is coming,” Hamlin elaborated. “So while Chastain’s probably just doing whatever he can to maintain the lead, and aero-blocking him, I mean that’s how much of an advantage it is to be up-front.
“Chastain is able to slow his car down enough to swerve through the corners, and the second place guy who runs the optimum line still cannot pass him. Because the minute he swerves into the wake, and creates a wake for the No. 12, the No. 12 instantly loses so much grip, that he backs him up.”
While it’s a controversial scenario, Hamlin doesn’t believe Chastain did anything unfair to Blaney, and it all worked out for both drivers in the end.
“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.”
Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain have had their differences, but the veteran had no issues with the latter’s performance at Phoenix, even if Ryan Blaney wasn’t a fan.