Denny Hamlin reacts to, questions Kyle Larson wreck at Indy 500

The eyes of the motorsports world descended upon Kyle Larson and his second attempt at The Double this past weekend. Unfortunately, the world-class driver didn’t live up to his reputation during the Indianapolis 500 or the Coca-Cola 600.

While Denny Hamlin and Larson have had their battles in the past, there’s a mutual respect between the two wheelmen. During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, the 44-year old tried to make sense of Larson’s wreck during his venture into IndyCar, wondering what went wrong for the NASCAR superstar in the Indy 500.

“I got to watch a little bit of [the Indianapolis 500]. You know, with my schedule and all the appearances and whatnot that I had, meet and greets, I didn’t get to watch a lot of it. I got to watch the first 60 or 70 [laps], and then I didn’t get to see but the last 30. So, I missed the action in between. Unfortunately, it didn’t, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, missed the Kyle Larson wreck,” Hamlin stated.

“Just such an odd wreck, because it wasn’t — it appeared they weren’t up to speed yet. Like, if you look at how fast he was going when he crashed, it was, I don’t know, I estimate like, 160? They were not up to speed yet, but I guess he just hit a weird pocket of air there or something, and that thing just swapped ends.”

Alas, if you want an answer, go straight to the source. Larson told FOX Sports he simply got too eager and spun when he got loose on the restart, and he was disappointed some other drivers got caught up in his mess.

“Was a bit crazy on the start and yeah, I got tight behind Takuma [Sato]. I was really close to him, and I got maybe shaded left to him — I haven’t seen a replay. Got loose and kind of got all over the place. So, I spun,” Larson told FOX Sports on Sunday.

“Just hate that I got a little too eager there on the restart and caused that crash. Hate it for everybody that also got caught up in it. Just bummed out. Try to get over this quickly and get onto Charlotte and forget about it.”

All told, Charlotte wasn’t much better for Kyle Larson, as he ended up wrecking during the Coca-Cola 600, as well. After two disappointing attempts at The Double, time will tell if the juice is worth the squeeze in 2026, but Denny Hamlin still has an immense amount of respect for his NASCAR counterpart following his folly.