LAS VEGAS — The first thing Denny Hamlin said when he climbed from his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, having advanced into the third round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, was that he wished he’d known not to pass Ross Chastain on the final lap.
In racing Chastain for that position on Charlotte’s road-and-oval course, it knocked the Trackhouse Racing driver out of the playoffs and gave the final spot in the round of eight to Team Penske’s Joey Logano, who won the third Cup Series championship of his career last year.
Logano’s two most recent titles sandwiched the 2024 crown for teammate Ryan Blaney, meaning Roger Penske’s crew has won three in a row on NASCAR’s top circuit, so Hamlin was fiercely criticized for not taking Logano out of contention.
The third round begins Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with eight drivers remaining as championship contenders from what began a month ago as a field of 16, and those left represent the top teams in NASCAR: Hamlin leads JGR teammates Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe into the round, while Penske has Logano and Blaney, and Hendrick Motorsports is represented by William Byron, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson. That also represents all three current manufacturers that run in the Cup Series: Hendrick is a Chevrolet team, JGR is a Toyota team and Penske is a Ford team.
Hamlin, Briscoe and Bell swept the first three spots Saturday in qualifying, and Hamlin will lead the field to green in pursuit of his 60th career win and one of the four title-eligible berths in the regular-season finale on Nov. 2 at Phoenix Raceway. Hamlin, who has more Cup Series wins than anyone in NASCAR history without winning a season title, has one win at Las Vegas on the top-tier circuit.
There’s controversy surrounding the Hamlin-Chastain incident last Sunday on the Roval in part because a year ago Logano was initially eliminated from the playoffs in a race on the same course. He learned later that night he was back in the field when Bowman’s car failed inspection, then Logano won in Las Vegas a week later — his four Cup Series win on that track — to lock up a title shot in Phoenix.
“Denny would have to ask himself, ‘What’s going to give me the best chance to win the championship?’ — if that’s your number one goal. If that’s your main goal to do that, ‘What gives me the best chances to win the whole thing?'” Logano wondered. “Is one competitor tougher than the other? I don’t know. I don’t know if you want to race against either one of us. Ross has proven to do whatever it takes to get to the next round or to win. He’s done that multiple times. Do you want to race against him? I don’t know.
“Do you want to race against us? I don’t think so, either. You’re probably in a no-win situation, so you might as well just pass him and go and get a better spot.”
The entire situation is also being scrutinized by NASCAR, which said this week it would be carefully monitoring potentials of race manipulation over the final month of the season. NASCAR managing director of communications Mike Forde said on the series’ “Hauler Talk” podcast that the sanctioning body’s officials would have acted if it had heard JGR team members telling Hamlin not to pass Chastain, who drives for a Chevy team.
“If we heard that radio transmission say, ‘Hey, (Chastain) needs this point to advance to the next round over (Logano)’ or something of that ilk, and all of a sudden, (Hamlin) let off the gas, that would probably raise a red flag on our side,” Forde said.
Hamlin believes that isn’t right.
“I don’t see any reason why I can’t know what the point situation is,” Hamlin said Saturday. “I had no allegiance to either party, and so at that point, my question would be: ‘Do I have a right to choose my competitor?’
“I think the some of the sensitivity around this is obviously probably gambling-focused, because I know that NASCAR is very, very sensitive, as they should be, with that to make sure everyone’s getting a fair shake,” Hamlin continued. “But on the race track, I feel as though, as long as you’re you don’t have a bias to one party or another… I don’t know why you can’t make the best decision for yourself. I’m more wondering, what is going to be allowed?”
The entire field of eight had the same question for NASCAR.
“It’s a slippery slope either way, because where is the line? Is just telling somebody where you are in points and what’s going on around you, is that too far?” Logano said. “Saying straight-up what to do is probably too far. We can kind of understand that, but just saying what the point situation is, I don’t think that’s too far.
“I think just feeding someone data it still leaves it in the driver’s hands to do what they please with it. It’s just giving information. That’s all you’re doing.”
The warning on avoiding race manipulation came from attention it received last weekend at Charlotte, and Forde said series officials had reviewed the late-race radio transmissions of Hendrick’s Alex Bowman and Haas Factory Team’s Cole Custer because of social media debates over some of the comments made.
Custer was racing behind Logano, who snagged the final spot in the round of eight, while Bowman was racing near Chastain. After the race, Hamlin said he wished he’d been told on his team radio not to pass Chastain in an attempt to eliminate Logano from title contention.
And during the second-tier Xfinity Series race one day earlier, NASCAR warned two teams already locked into the next round about discussing the points scenarios for cars that had yet to advance.
“Fans should be coming to the race track and expecting a straight-up race where each position is fought for as hard as possible, especially at the end of a race,” Forde said on the podcast.
Hendrick’s Larson is the betting favorite for Sunday’s race at plus-475. He leads all Cup Series drivers at Las Vegas with 690 laps led and seven stage wins, and his average finish of 9.39 leads all drivers with more than three starts.
Hendrick drivers won five of the past nine Cup Series races at the track. Larson has three wins, while Bowman and Byron have one each.