Denny Hamlin’s win in Nashville turned out to be a three-way fight between three of JGR’s four drivers. A late caution gave Christopher Bell the upper hand with just four laps to go.

Bell got off to the best start, but Hamlin used all his experience and got up beside Bell and drove the No. 20 driver steadily up the track. Eventually, Bell conceded to Hamlin and had to settle for second place.

Kevin Harvick discussed the mental side of racing against Denny Hamlin on his podcast, Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour. 

Harvick had Mamba Smith for company, who pointed to Denny Hamlin’s racing mentality being different from the rest of the JGR drivers. He believed that was what gave Hamlin the edge to win in Nashville. 

Smith said, “I think what it is is he’s not afraid to not make the corner. He’s not afraid that if he’s going in for the win and wrecks, Denny Hamlin is very okay with that. But I’m not so sure that everybody else feels the same way. And it seems like they’re more apt to give more room to him.”

Smith pointed to how it was a similar situation in Dover last year when Hamlin held off teammate Chase Briscoe in overtime to take the win. Harvick noted that Hamlin had pulled the same move on Kyle Larson as well. 

Smith observed that it felt like the drivers had a different expectation despite knowing exactly what Hamlin does.

“It’s interesting to watch that week in and week out, you know how he’s gonna race you. It’s like they think he’s gonna give them more, and he just takes all of it. And so,” Smith said. "If you want to beat 11, you're gonna have to beat him at his game at some point."

Hamlin hugged the inside line and used all of it to push Bell as wide as possible. Bell ended up very close to the wall at a point, further away from the dominant racing line. 

Bell Had Nothing to do, says Harvick

Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have been in head-to-head battles many times, just like the one between Hamlin and Bell on Sunday. And Harvick was clear on one thing: he wouldn’t let Hamlin pull that stunt on him. 

Harvick recalled a race in 2019 where he edged out Hamlin by defending aggressively while leading the final 41 laps on older tires. “If you go back to Loudon in the year that Denny and I raced, you just can’t let yourself get put in that position. But what choice did he (Bell) have? They were side by side.”

Harvick broke down exactly how Hamlin crowds his opponent and aggressively prevents them from overtaking him. He believed that while Hamlin's maneuver made it a tight squeeze for Bell, the latter hadn't tried that hard to push back either.

“I know Denny was working him up the hill, but you got to crowd him or something trying to take his entry wave. I mean, if he’s gonna race, if he’s gonna keep crowding you, you’re gonna have to crowd him, and at a different point, in order to try to put yourself in a better spot. But I don’t, and he didn’t do anything wrong,” Harvick said.

Despite all the efforts, Christopher Bell will have to go again in a bid to win his first race this season. Denny Hamlin, on the other hand, will hope this is the start of a dominant run. 

Hamlin sits second in the championship behind 23XI’s Tyler Reddick, having closed the gap to under 100 points for the first time since Reddick took the lead.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Arundhoti Palit