Denny Hamlin considers if Kyle Larson jumped the start in Brickyard 400 finish

Kyle Larson gained a race-winning advantage during the first overtime restart of Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Brad Keselowski, running P1 at the time, ran out of fuel just before getting to the start-finish line. With Ryan Blaney, the P2 car, on the outside, Larson took Keselowski’s place on the inside on the restart. Larson got by Blaney coming out of Turns 1 and 2 and took the white flag as the leader on the following overtime attempt when NASCAR threw the caution for Ryan Preece’s spin on the back straightaway.

Denny Hamlin covered the restart on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast and gave his take on whether he thought Larson jumped the restart. Hamlin said that because Larson had the advantage of being on the bottom, there was nothing Blaney was going to be able to do going into Turn 1.

“He went and gassed it up to get even with the 12 right away,” Hamlin said. “Then he backed off, then he rolled a little bit of speed. When I say a little bit, it’s like a mile per hour the entire time he just kept creeping, creeping, creeping and then they fired at the same time. And then what happened was since they fired at the same time, Kyle’s got that one mile per hour advantage the whole time.

“But again, this doesn’t matter at all. The 12 could have been all ahead of him entering Turn 1 and the 5 was gonna blow his doors off since he had the bottom. It’s just one of the only racetracks we have where the bottom is significantly at an advantage. But yeah, the 5 went back, rolled a half car back and then kept rolling that one mile per hour all the way until they both fired at the same time.”

Kyle Larson wins Brickyard 400 in controversial fashion

NASCAR didn’t feel that Larson jumped the restart, and then allowed the race to continue through the white flag even after it was apparent Preece wasn’t moving. Through the pair of controversial rulings, Larson notched his fourth win of the season. It’s also his first career Brickyard 400 win.

Larson entered Sunday’s race three points behind Chase Elliott for the regular season points championship. He is now ahead with just four regular season races remaining. As the only four-time winner this season, Larson sits atop the playoff standings as well.

“I think we prove a lot that you can never hold us down,” Larson said after the race. “We always seem to recover. Whether the next week after a crash or during a race when a pit stop doesn’t go our way.”