For the fourth time this season, Denny Hamlin is on the pole. This time, it is at Watkins Glen International, his third on a road course this year. Hamlin won at The Glen in 2016 and has performed well there throughout his NASCAR career.
While folks don’t immediately think of Denny Hamlin when they consider the best road course racers, he’s showing otherwise. Three pole awards on road courses this season is no coincidence.
If Hamlin can win from the pole , he will help Bubba Wallace make the playoffs. No new winners is what that group wants to see this weekend.
Denny Hamlin threw down a super fast lap and then went out and improved upon that just to make sure he had the pole wrapped up. 70.392 seconds was the winning time over William Byron and Michael McDowell, last week’s Indy road course winner.
Ty Gibbs, Kyle Larson, AJ Allmendinger, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, and Corey LaJoie round out the top-10. Chase Elliott missed the final round and was very frustrated on pit road after the fact.
Denny Hamlin flexes his road course muscles
Having three pole awards on the road this year is nothing short of impressive. He has the pole award for three of the six road races this season. However, it hasn’t shown up on the final results sheet too often. In fact, Hamlin’s best finish on the road this year was Chicago in a P11 effort.
Hamlin was P16 at COTA, P36 at Sonoma after running well most of the day, P11 at Chicago, and P19 at Indianapolis. While he has a win and is locked into the playoffs, Hamlin would like to have some momentum heading into the playoffs.
While I’m sure he’s just trying to run his best race, Hamlin can do a lot to help Bubba Wallace’s playoff efforts. If he keeps a new winner from taking the checkered flag, then it keeps Wallace on the bubble, at the very least, heading into Daytona.
Denny Hamlin will lead the field to green on Sunday. He has two wins on the season and will try to score a third. I had him on my watchlist for this weekend, and he’s well on his way to getting his momentum back.