Denny Hamlin took a costly hit on lap 64 of the NASCAR Cup Series race in Sonoma, which relegated him from seventh to the back of the pack. While it was Carson Hocevar who faced the blame for bumping into him from behind, it was actually Brad Keselowski who pushed Hocevar into Hamlin.

But was it even him? Because Keselowski wanted no part of the blame. When a fan reshared a video of the incident initially posted by NASCAR on X, the RFK Racing driver quoted it and wrote:

"Idk man. Visibly getting pushed from behind."

Keselowski was referring to being pushed by the car behind, which was the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Alex Bowman. The reason that the RFK Racing driver used to justify his part in the incident was the same as the one Hocevar used.

"I just know I got hit," Hocevar said in a video shared by Jeff Gluck on X. "I was gonna be left, and then I looked in my mirror, and they're all lining up. I was like, s*** if I don't get right, I'm probably going to get spun. I haven't seen it, but I just remember getting hit. I definitely got hit in accordion."

As for Denny Hamlin, during this contact, he damaged his splitter, causing him to pit in the final few laps of the race, which put him out of the top 10.

The three-time Daytona 500 winner was eventually forced to settle for a 26th-place finish. Nonetheless, he managed to overtake Tyler Reddick in the championship by one point.

If not for the incident, Denny Hamlin could have opened up a 30-plus-point lead in the championship between himself and Reddick, who finished dead last and four laps down.

Denny Hamlin opens up about his poor outing at Sonoma 

Coming off three consecutive wins and a strong road course performance by his standards at Coronado, Denny Hamlin was looking forward to getting another huge points haul in Sonoma. And he nearly got the points haul in the bag, but it all came undone during the lap 64 restart.

Despite multiple fans and drivers starting to play the blame game, Hamlin refused to blame anybody before watching the replay. While talking to Jeff Gluck post-race, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver expressed his frustration about the incident. 

"I mean, I'll have to just see what happened and, you know, reevaluate from there," he said.

When further asked about Carson Hocevar and Brad Keselowski's involvement in the incident, Hamlin added:

"I haven't seen it, Jeff. I know you want a reaction, but I haven't seen it. When I see it, I'll react to it. It's frustrating for sure."

While Hamlin has time and again spoken about how road courses are his weakness, he showed a decent amount of pace throughout the race, but was left wondering about the what-if.

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Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak