Denny Hamlin knew he had a 'tall task' to pass Ryan Blaney for the lead at Pocono

Denny Hamlin came close to another win at Pocono Raceway over the weekend, but Ryan Blaney was able to hold off the No. 11 wheelman for the victory.

In the aftermath of his runner-up finish, Hamlin took to his Actions Detrimental podcast to elaborate on whether or not he had enough for Blaney in the end, and if a couple more laps would’ve done the trick for him on Sunday.

“It’s two different things, passing in the pack is one thing, passing for the lead at that track is really, really hard and difficult,” Hamlin stated. “So, I just knew the whole time that it was 30, 40 to go, it’s like, ‘This is just going to be such a tall task, to try to get around these guys.’ You’re either gonna have to do it on a restart, or hope they make a mistake.

“At the end there, I was trying to be really patient with [Alex] Bowman, because I saw, and I knew what was going to happen, if I just push, push push to try to get around him, and then I don’t, then I’m not going to be able to make a charge. So, I had to wait on the tires to slow down just a little bit, and then I was able to make a move on him.” 

Evidently, Hamlin believes he was, at worst, the second best car on the track at the end of the race, but he made sure to give Blaney his flowers, not committing to saying he would’ve been able to catch and pass the No. 12.

“I’m not really sure, because I think that he was running, you know, when he was running his all out, I think we were kind of matching times at that point. So, I think his car was pretty strong, and he was obviously in the top five for most of the day on speed,” Hamlin added. “So, I thought he was probably going to be difficult to get around, and you know of all the other cars that I chased, it seemed like I could stay close with everyone else, but I mean, I never really ran behind Blaney throughout the day, except for the very end those last seven laps, but it seemed like he had decent enough pace that he was going to be able to hold us off.

“You’re gonna have to have a three, four tenth advantage, speed wise, and maybe that’s not even enough, at a track like Pocono, to try to pass, simply because, like we talked about, this Next Gen car needs lots of space. It needs wide corners, where the cars are going way up higher, way down low. You cannot run in the wake of these things, because it just takes so much downforce away.”

Nevertheless, a second-place finish isn’t the worst results for Denny Hamlin, after a couple of tough week, but coming so close and being just short will always sting, especially at a track like Pocono for the veteran wheelman.