What would have been a banner day for Joe Gibbs Racing went up in smoke when Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch‘s 1–2 finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series round at Pocono Raceway instead ended in disqualification for failing post-race inspection. Nevertheless, NASCAR announced Monday that the team has decided not to appeal the penalties.
Hamlin and Busch were done in when their cars were revealed to have illegal material stuck to the front fascia. NASCAR did not specify what the offending objects were nor where on the fascias were they located, though Cup Series managing director Brad Moran explained they impact the cars’ aerodynamics.
“There was some issues discovered that affect aero of the vehicle,” Moran said following the race. “The part was the front fascia. There really was no reason why there was some material that was somewhere it shouldn’t have been, and that does basically come down to a DQ. It is a penalty, both for the #11 of Denny Hamlin and the #18 of Kyle Busch have been DQed. Their vehicles are being loaded in the NASCAR hauler. They’re going to go back to the R&D Center. The final results have been changed to show that the two DQs were there, and they have the opportunity to appeal it, and it’ll be all sorted out by next week.
“We don’t want to be here talking about this. We just saw a great race. Last thing you want to do is meet here afterwards and talk about this problem. But the teams and the owners and everybody is well aware that this new car was going to be kept with some pretty tight tolerances, and there’s some areas that all the teams are well aware that we cannot be going down the path that we had in the past with the other cars.
“It is partly to do with the new car, and the rules have tightened up, and everyone has to kind of abide by our new rules, which everybody is well aware of. We saw enough that the DQ was warranted, and we are bringing the vehicles back for further evaluation, so we will look much closer at both vehicles. But as of right now, we are hopefully not going to find anything else, but we are going to inspect them further when we get them back to the R&D Center.”
With the disqualification, Hamlin received the dubious honour of being the first Cup race winner to lose his victory via penalty since Emanuel Zervakis at Wilson Speedway in 1960 for an overly large fuel cell. Five years prior, Palm Beach Speedway saw the last premier series case of the top two being disqualified in Joe Weatherly and Jim Reed for illegal parts. Hamlin is also the third race winner to suffer the fate since NASCAR implemented the current post-race inspection policy in 2019; ironically, the other two cases have ties to him as Busch was disqualified after winning the 2020 Texas Xfinity race while rival Ross Chastain was caught at the 2019 Iowa Truck event.
Third-placed Chase Elliott inherited the win as a result. In a press conference on Monday, Elliott clarified he had no intention of “celebrating someone’s misfortune” and was open to letting Hamlin keep his trophy.
“I don’t know the details of what went on,” said Elliott. “I don’t know what made them make that decision. It’s not necessarily something I’m proud of or something I’m going to boast about over the course of the situation. I thought we were very fortunate to run third, to be honest with you. I thought we started off okay, then struggled at the midpoint of the event, and I thought for us to get back into the top five is really a good day.
“[…] No race car driver wants to win that way. Whether it gets overturned or not overturned or whatever, I’m not going to celebrate somebody’s misfortune or whatever in that situation. That doesn’t seem right to me. I crossed the line third, so that’s kind of how I’m looking at it.
“Honestly, if he wants to keep it, he can keep it as far as I’m concerned. He crossed the finish line first. […] I didn’t really feel like I earned it on track yesterday, so if he wants to keep it then I’m good with that. I’m not going to ask for it.”
Despite the disqualifications, Hamlin and Busch are still virtually locked into the playoffs as race winners.