Hamlin looking to 'clean it up' as playoff woes continue
Yesterday at 11:52 AM
Denny Hamlin earned a top-10 finish on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but the postseason continues to be anything but smooth sailing for his Joe Gibbs Racing team.
"Not a clean day," Hamlin said after finishing eighth. "That certainly sums it up. We did the best we could to get the best finish. I thought Chris did a great job to get some sort of finish.
"Once we lost the track position early, he was doing the best he could to try to get it back through strategy, and then it goes long there, and we fall to the back. Just part of it."
Hamlin fell out of the top 10 during the first round of green flag pit stops in the South Point 400. The No. 11 crew had a slower pit stop than the competition that dropped Hamlin in the running order.
Gabehart kept Hamlin on track to start the second stage, which gave the team the race lead. However, Gabehart wasn't looking to run away with the race but to regain the lost track position. It didn't help much as Hamlin quickly dropped through the field on older tires. He finished the stage in 19th position.
"We were off some, but we lost so much track position obviously on pit road," Hamlin said. "So, we weren't that great. Certainly not as good as I thought we would be after practice (on Saturday). The team did a really good job just getting the best finish we could."
Hamlin called the struggles on pit road "not ideal" and that it is hampering their ability to finish well. It was the same story at Kansas Speedway when Hamlin had to fight for an eighth-place finish due to a long day on pit road.
"But everyone is trying as hard as they can," Hamlin said.
A top-10 finish was the good news for Hamlin, but he is still behind in the battle to transfer to the championship race. Hamlin went from eight points below the cutline to 27 leaving Las Vegas.
"I don't know where we are at, but certainly, we’re not running quite as strong as we were earlier in the year, and we’re definitely not as clean, execution-wise, as we were," Hamlin said. "We will just have to clean it up and go to Homestead and try to win it."
