Stewart-Haas Racing won't appeal Kevin Harvick's disqualification at Talladega
Stewart-Haas Racing has made their decision to not appeal Kevin Harvick’s disqualification from the Talladega NASCAR Playoff race. Harvick fought hard and finished P2. It was a heartbreaking loss of 0.012 seconds to Ryan Blaney, but it got worse from there.
Due to what was essentially an unfastened windshield, Kevin Harvick had his result thrown out. The disqualification gave him a last-place finish. Ross Chastain lost a point in the playoff standings as a result since he was bumped from 38th to 37th place, he didn’t get an extra point and instead lost a point on the rest of the field. Everyone else remained equal.
Here is the statement from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chief Competition Director, Greg Zipadelli, about the DQ decision from NASCAR.
“At the completion of the race, not all of our windshield fasteners were secure, as we had bolts that hold the windshield in place back out over the course of the 500 miles. We are in the process of diagnosing why this happened and how to prevent it moving forward.
We are disappointed in NASCAR’s decision to disqualify our racecar and the hard-earned finish by our driver and team, but we will not appeal. Our complete focus is on the remaining races on this year’s schedule.”
Stewart-Haas Racing has had a lot of nasty run-ins lately with NASCAR rules. Cole Custer this season in the Xfinity Series had an illegal part on his car. Chase Briscoe had an illegal part earlier this year in the Cup Series.
Kevin Harvick will remain a DQ for Talladega.
Kevin Harvick DQ at Talladega is final
Without an appeal, the Kevin Harvick disqualification is now final. The Closer is going to put a close on his Talladega career with an interesting asterisk. 46 total starts at the historic superspeedway and this will be his only disqualification.
NASCAR has been heavy-handed with penalties lately. In the Next Gen era especially, penalties have come often and they have been severe at times. Even dating back to 2022, Stewart-Haas Racing has had some harsh penalties.
So, what does this mean? Well, not much for Kevin Harvick. At this point, he will likely be content with however this season ends. It really feels like he’s made peace with the decision and is looking forward to doing what’s next in his life, broadcasting.
This one really stinks for Kevin Harvick. Imagine if he had won and the uproar it would cause to take his final Cup Series victory away from him? Hopefully, Harvick has one more performance up his firesuit sleeve in these final five races of the season.