In a candid admission, NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin revealed that his revenge move on Ross Chastain during the 2023 United Rentals Work United 500 at Phoenix Raceway was intentional.
Hamlin and Chastain have a history of on-track run-ins, with Hamlin often on the losing end. The incident in question occurred on the final restart when Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota drifted high into Turn 1, making contact with Chastain and sending both cars into the wall.
Denny Hamlin Got One Back on Ross Chastain
Hamlin had been holding a grudge since Chastain’s aggressive driving helped him secure a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Finals at Hamlin’s expense the previous fall. So, when Hamlin saw his hopes for a strong finish slipping away, he decided to take Chastain down with him. In classic NASCAR fashion, Hamlin let the wheel go, forcing both drivers into the wall.
After the race, Hamlin admitted, “It wasn’t a mistake. I let the wheel go, and I said, ‘He’s coming with me.’”
On his podcast “Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin,” he elaborated, “I saw that we were the only people up top, so I said, ‘I’m gonna send him in the fence and door him.’ Now my dumb a** got caught up in it because I got pinned. He was between me and the wall, and then so I got all screwed up, and then I lost a bunch of positions for my team, which was stupid as f***.”
Hamlin added, “But at the time, I’m like, ‘I’m gonna finish in the mid-teens anyway because my car’s just plowing here, and I’m about to get ate up by all these new tires.’ I just was like, ‘If I’m gonna give this guy a hard time, this is going to be then.’”
After the race, Chastain confronted Hamlin about the move: “He came up to me, and he says, ‘I guess I deserve it.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ I’m not gonna sit here on this podcast and ever lie to you guys and say, ‘Well, this is an accident,’ when it’s not. It wasn’t an accident. I meant to put them in the fence, but I didn’t mean to screw my team in the process. But at the time when you’re seeing red, that’s all that really matters.”
In spite of the bad blood, Hamlin and Chastain did eventually manage to make peace. Reflecting on their talks, Hamlin said, “I just saw an opportunity to not involve anyone else. I was about to go to the back, and I wanted to take him with me. So, we talked, and I think that we are in a better place where I think we’re willing to put the past behind us, and I think that we’re going to judge each other from this point forward, and I think that’s the fairest way to do it.”
