Denny Hamlin behind the wheel of the No. 11 Going Bowling at The Glen (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Denny Hamlin had a noteworthy weekend at Watkins Glen International, ending with a second-place finish on the New York road course.
Hamlin started off the weekend with considerable speed, going on to win the pole position with a lap time of 70.392 seconds.
Once the green flag dropped, Hamlin still showed similar speed. However, Michael McDowell in the No. 34 was able to pass the Chesterfield, Virginia native on Lap 3 to take the lead and William Byron got past him for second. Hamlin maintained top 10 speed throughout Stage 1, ending the first 20 laps in the third position.
The 42-year-old showcased consistent speed again throughout Stage 2, working his way to a second-place Stage 2 finish. Hamlin ran in the same position throughout Stage 3, but was never able to close the gap between himself and Byron, the leader.
During a media availability after the race, Hamlin spoke about his finish, and what he felt enabled it.
“[I’m] happy about it, able to string together competitive laps most laps,” Hamlin said. “Just gave up track position a little bit early and that was it.”
“I’m happy with our performance. I’ve been qualifying well in the Next Gen on road courses, but haven’t been able to put together an entire race of laps and I think today was the first time I did.”
Notably, this was Hamlin’s first top-10 finish on a road course in the Next Gen car. Previous to the Next Gen era, Hamlin has one road course win at Watkins Glen in 2016 alongside 18 top 10 finishes at road courses throughout his 17-year NASCAR Cup Series career.
In recent years, more road, and even street courses, have been added to the Cup Series schedule. Some Cup Series drivers are more fond of road courses than others with Hamlin being one of the more indifferent drivers towards road courses in the past.
Still, he spoke after the race about road course racing becoming a more prominent part of the Cup Series, adapting to road courses in the Next Gen car and what that has looked like for his mindset towards them.
“It’s a bigger part of our schedule now, so you have to, it forces you to,” he said. “I never want to show up to a race track and not think I can win. That’s when I will quit, is when I know I can’t win and I still feel like every week I show up I can.”
With one race to go in the regular season, Denny Hamlin is already locked into the Playoffs with wins at Kansas and Pocono. Many eyes will be on Hamlin again next week at Daytona because that is one of the tracks that the Joe Gibbs racing driver has historically found more luck at, with three Daytona 500 wins in 2016, 2019 and 2020 respectively.
