Austin Hill entered Kansas wanting to finish stronger than he did at Bristol. However, those hopes were shattered early in the O'Reilly race when he lost control of his car after being spun by his Richard Childress Racing teammate Jesse Love.

On lap 38, Hill and Love were going hard for the sixth position in turns 3 and 4. Leaving little space for Hill on the left, Love continued in the upper lane. Hill spun due to the bad aero created by their proximity and was later T-boned by William Sawalich.

Reflecting on the incident, Love took responsibility for the crash. When he saw the clip for the first time while giving a post-race interview, the No. 2 Chevy driver said:

"It’s my first time seeing it. Not that there was any contact, but I think that at the end of the day, I put him in a really bad aero spot tonight. Look, there's a couple of sides to the coin. I’m probably not seeing the whole picture, the bigger picture right now, because I’m so raw right after the moment. But I’m definitely going to lean on the people around me. I’m definitely going to talk to somebody like Justin Allgaier to see what he thinks about it, and other people around me too."

While he still felt he was just being competitive, Love reiterated that he was responsible for the incident, and also emphasized the importance of Richard Childress having two cars fighting for points.

“I made the pass, and then we started racing really, really hard, and I think that from my standpoint, I was racing really, really hard. It wasn’t a dump or a wreck or something like that. But at the same time, I have to be aware that I put him in a bad aero spot and it was still my doing," Love added.

The crash proved to be detrimental for Austin Hill. He fell two spots in the driver’s standings to eighth with 296 points. Meanwhile, Jesse Love remained at third with 371 points.

Austin Hill reflects on "unfortunate" run-in with Jesse Love

Austin Hill stated that he was "dumbfounded" by his incident with RCR teammate Jesse Love. His subpar run over the last few races, barring a P6 at Martinsville, added to the pain.

Explaining how he expected Love to give him more space on the track, Hill said:

"Just unfortunate, especially when you have a run-in with your teammate. Out of everybody out on the racetrack, I would expect a little more room out of the 2 car than the rest of the field. But oh well. We’ll go to Talladega, we’ll work together as teammates, go try to win that one, and go from there. It’s all good."

Taylor Gray won the O'Reilly race at Kansas after starting 10th and leading 48 laps. NASCAR now heads to Talladega Superspeedway for the last race weekend of April.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Yask Kotak