Denny Hamlin disagrees with NASCAR's decision to use noncompetitive pit stops: 'Work on pit lane first'

Denny Hamlin doesn’t believe non-competitive pit stops should’ve been utilized after the resuming of the USA Today 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend.

NASCAR believed pit lane was too slick, so to avoid injuries, it was decided non-competitive pit stops would be used for the entirety of the final laps after the red flag was lifted. That’s something that didn’t sit well with Hamlin, as he believes there should be more of an emphasis on the difference a pit crew can make.

“If pit road is not safe, which that’s why we had non-competitive pit stops, then you shouldn’t restart the race until pit road is safe,” Hamlin stated, via the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast. “So do whatever drying you need to do to pit lane, and make that safe. … Maybe that should be the priority, when they go back to drying the facility, because you know, they made a lap with the Air Titans and jet dryers and whatever, just to try and get the big water off the track. Maybe work on pit lane first.

“Now, the difficulty with that is there were cars sitting on pit lane, while they were trying to dry it, so you’d have to move the cars. … Perhaps pit lane should’ve been more of an emphasis.”

While Hamlin understands wanting to protect the pit crews from themselves, he’s also looking at it from an owner’s perspective — 23XI Racing invests in their pit crews to have an advantage over the competition, and that was taken away from them.

“Probably should treat it like it’s more of the actual racing surface,” Hamlin added. “One, we pay these crew guys a lot of money, and for them to be useless for that last 100 laps, it’s not ideal. But you certainly want to protect them and their safety, which is why I think NASCAR just felt a lot of pressure from you know, the media on X and whatever else.

“You know, they read it, and so when people are like, ‘Why do you have wet weather tires if you’re not going to run in the wet?’ You know, that stuff gets to them, and they react.”

Ironically enough, Christopher Bell’s pit crew — the fastest in the garage — didn’t factor into him winning the race, so perhaps the point was moot. Nevertheless, Hamlin relented that NASCAR was up against it with the sun setting, and there might not have been enough time to dry pit lane anyway.

“I think that they were up against the clock, no question, in many different ways,” Hamlin elaborated. “At the end of the race, I mean, it was dark.

“I know you can’t see it on TV because of the filters that they have on the cameras, but it was very, very dark, no doubt. … If we had gone another ten minutes, it would’ve been too dark, but we ended at the right time.”

Moving forward, the use of non-competitive pit stops will certainly continue to be debated, but we now know where Denny Hamlin stands on the issue. Whether it changes or not remains to be seen though, as NASCAR will take anything and everything from the last weekend under consideration.