Late pit stop nearly wrecked Denny Hamlin's win at Michigan

Denny Hamlin claimed his third win of the season on Sunday at Michigan. But a late pit stop was mere inches from costing him the win.

Hamlin nearly exited his pit box with the fueler still attached. And if not for an extremely savvy move by his pit crew, he would have been hit with a penalty for having equipment leave the pit box.

Video showed a member of Hamlin’s pit crew out toward the front of the box, waiting in the event the fueler came toward the front. Sure enough, when Hamlin opted to leave pit road early, that nearly happened.

The safety man was able to catch things in time, preventing Hamlin from being assessed a pass-through penalty that would have sent him to the back of the field. You can see how close a call it was below.

Close call for Denny Hamlin exiting his stall. Fuel can nearly left his box

Hamlin ends up P2 behind Ryan Blaney who wins the race off pic.twitter.com/yfcJYWZmmy

— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) June 8, 2025

After the race, Denny Hamlin opened up on how close he was to blowing it on the late pit stop. He explained:

“Truthfully I thought our chances of winning were pretty much dashed when we had a little slower stop on the last one,” he said, per Frontstretch. Of course, Hamlin would make up for it with his excellent driving down the stretch.

But the move from his pit crew deserves equal praise, if not more. It was extremely smart thinking, and crew chief Chris Gayle opened up on it after the race.

“We’ve seen others do this,” Gayle said, per Alan Cavanna. “When you’re doing a situation to where fuel only is where you normally see it, like at speedways, where some other teams have a guy to catch the fueler in case he’s caught or whatever, starts to lose the can, to keep it in the box and keep the guy from going across the line. That’s not exactly the way this played out.”

This one was a last-second decision by Denny Hamlin to try to get back out on the track as quickly as possible. It nearly proved fatal.

“He was supposed to wait on fuel, right? Denny was,” Gayle said. “He decided he was going to audible and not wait on fuel. Of course the fueler is not ready when he takes off, right? He said that was on him when he left.

“Thankfully the other crew member was smart enough when they finished the four-tire stop, he kind of got in the position in case that happened because they only practice it for fuel-only stops. It worked out. It was needed this time.”

Indeed. Quite an impressive showing of outside-the-box thinking to make sure the team wasn’t penalized.

And Denny Hamlin made it pay. That’s about all you can ask for from a driver, a crew chief and his pit crew.