NASCAR insiders react to poor performance for Denny Hamlin at Las Vegas

Despite a top-10 finish at Las Vegas, Denny Hamlin had a poor overall performance. Now is when Hamlin should be turning up the heat. However, the NASCAR Playoffs Round of 8 began with a dud.

Denny Hamlin had multiple botched pit stops, which included a poorly timed two-tire stop. His car seemingly had no speed in it. Things were not clicking on the track or on pit road.

Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic talked about Hamlin’s tough day on The Teardown. When the 11 team should be shining bright, they were mostly forgettable on Sunday.

“Like Denny Hamlin’s pit crew had trouble on their pit stops today,” Gluck said to his cohost. “Not the smoothest would you say?”

Bianchi answered.

“No, they just had a bad day all around. They didn’t have speed in their race car. I was really shocked. I’ve said that I thought that once Denny Hamlin got to this round he was going to do really, really well,” the journalist said. “I thought this was going to be an opportunity for them to solidify themselves to say, ‘Hey, we are a championship threat,’ and to join that Larson, Bell group that we’ve kind of already penciled in, and they didn’t run well. I know they grinded out a decent finish today but it was a struggle. And yes, they had issues on pit road but even before that.

“Like, Gabehart had a tough day in the pit box his call there to only take two tires is probably one he would probably want back. Hamlin free-falled there, cost them track position, they never got that back, the speed wasn’t there. Rallied back at the end, impressive, kudos for that, but not at all the day I don’t think anyone thought they would have. Now you look at the situation they’re in, you would think they’d be able to go to Homestead and have a very good day, even at Martinsville. But this was disappointing, this was not at all what we expected, and now I’m not sure what to expect the next two weeks.”

Sunday was a missed opportunity. While Denny struggled, teammates Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr. were two of the best on the day. No speed, bad strategy, and barely a salvaged finish.

Jeff Gluck thought Denny Hamlin would be better

Denny Hamlin is -27 to the cutline. That is mostly due to the fact that Joey Logano won the race yesterday. It pushed the cutline up to William Byron. That is a lot of points to make up in two races, but not impossible.

This team has to figure things out, though.

“I mean, I echo your comments there in that I thought this was the time where we’re going to see what the 11 team really has, right?” Gluck asked. “There’s been so many times when it felt like, ‘Well, they’ve had really fast cars they just haven’t had a chance to show it.’ ‘Well certainly, you know, once you get to the real racing we’ll see the strength that they really have.’

“And it felt like, even if you take the two-tire strategy call away … Denny then fell backwards to 27th and then he got back up to 19th but then he has a loose wheel on the pit stop after Stage 2 and that cost him more time. Even then, it felt like you weren’t seeing the speed of their car, they couldn’t go forward like I thought they could.”

Denny Hamlin stumbled yet again. The second half of this season has not been nearly as strong as the first half. Something has to change and change fast. If the 11-car is slow against Homestead, it could be the final nail in the coffin.

Hamlin salvaged a P8 finish. It helped him end up fifth overall in the standings. It might not be enough to get him to Phoenix, though.