Denny Hamlin reveals two moments when he realized he couldn't win Brickyard 400

Denny Hamlin looked strong during the Brickyard 400, but he did not finish the race after being collected in a wreck during the first overtime restart. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin revealed the two moments when he realized he couldn’t win the Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“When Kyle [Larson] passed us, that was it,” Hamlin began. “Really, there were two moments. There was one where we took the fuel under that caution with 48 (laps) to go. I came in first, came out third or fourth. Very similar to Pocono where I came in with a lead, didn’t leave with the lead because I had to take a little more fuel. I just knew if Chris (Gabehart) is going to ask me to have to pass someone running 100 percent it was going to be a non-starter.

“…We lost the race because we didn’t come out of pit road on Lap 48 with the lead.” Hamlin went on to talk about what Ryan Blaney did to jump him. “Blaney short-pitted the stage in Stage 3,” Hamlin explained. “…He was going to have to take less fuel than us under green. If we just go green, we don’t even need to green the entire distance. We just needed to go green for 10-15 laps right after Lap 110. Just go green for a couple laps here, everyone then starts to pit under green and we’ve got such a sizeable lead, it doesn’t matter how much fuel we take because we’ve got such a spread.”

Denny Hamlin still had a productive Brickyard 400

Despite coming up short at the Brickyard 400, Hamlin earned playoff points as he won Stage 1 and finished third in Stage 2. He has clinched a spot in the playoffs since he’s won three races this year, but Hamlin also has a shot of winning the regular season title as he’s 43 points behind Larson for the top spot in the standings.

Before the race, Hamlin talked about how he really wanted to win at Indy. “I want to win it bad,” Hamlin said on the podcast. I also know that I need to control what I can control, do my job on the racetrack, off the racetrack. This is gonna be a race that can be frustrating. You can have a very, very fast car and if you put that fast car in 10th place, it’s gonna be tough. It’ll be tough to come back from that. It comes from executing right when you unload to the checkered flag. I just got to make sure I do my job to the best of my ability and if we do, we’re gonna have a great shot.”

On3’s Nick Geddes contributed to this story.