Denny Hamlin breaks down unfortunate Bubba Wallace decision on final restart at Atlanta

Bubba Wallace had the race in his hands at Atlanta. According to Denny Hamlin, he just tried to do a little too much with it on the final restart.

On the latest episode of Actions Detrimental, Hamlin dissected Wallace’s pivotal lane change during the ultimate restart at EchoPark Speedway. The move that ultimately opened the door for Carson Hocevar and flipped the outcome of the Autotrader 400.

“He went too far. Bubba shifted lanes,” Hamlin said. “It’s easy for us to say here on Monday, after we know how it all happens, what to do. Everybody, every driver, including Bubba, would have said, ‘I’m going to go ahead and stay on the bottom.’”

Wallace entered overtime as arguably the strongest car in the field. He finished second in Stage 1 and won Stage 2, banking valuable stage points and controlling much of the second half of the race. Leading the bottom lane with Toyota teammate Tyler Reddick directly behind him, Wallace appeared poised to seal the deal.

But as Hocevar’s No. 77 Chevrolet surged forward, Wallace made a split-second decision. Hamlin walked listeners through what he believed was Wallace’s thought process.

“If I’m Bubba, here’s what I’m thinking,” Hamlin explained. “I see the 77 coming. I’m thinking, ‘Okay, he’s pinned in beside the 45, so he can’t go anywhere except if he wants to try to pass me, he’s going to have to go high. So he’s pinned. 

“I’m going to go up there, take his run, and probably get hit by him. It’s going to push me out. Then I’m going to go right back down to the bottom. I’m going to just make sure he never gets beside me.’”

The goal for Wallace, in Hamlin’s view? Control both lanes and eliminate the 50-50 drag race to the finish line. The problem? The gap wasn’t what Wallace thought it was.

“The downside is that when he moved up, you could see he went from below the first dotted line on the bottom to actually left sides right at it or above it,” Hamlin added. “Now you’ve left the middle, and it was just for a split second.”

That sliver of space was all Hocevar needed: “We saw the restart before — Carson’s gonna take a hole that’s not there, much less one that’s pretty much there,” Hamlin added. “I just wouldn’t have counted on him pushing you.”

Instead, Hocevar filled the gap, Wallace got shuffled to the outside, and Reddick capitalized en route to his second straight win to open 2026. Afterward, Wallace remained measured.

“I didn’t think I moved up that much,” Wallace told FOX Sports. “Unfortunate, but man, what a racecar we had today.”

Alas, a near-perfect afternoon ended in frustration for Wallace. As Hamlin sees it, the logic was sound, but the execution from his 23XI Racing driver just left too much room.