Denny Hamlin Essentially Eliminated From NASCAR Regular Season Championship By Massive Penalty
Denny Hamlin has been docked 75 points for a technical violation that has ended his chances of claiming the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship.
Hamlin’s Bristol-winning engine was never submitted to NASCAR for a post-race inspection before being rebuilt as required by regulations, which led to a penalty that included the loss of 75 owner points and 10 playoff points.
The race win also no longer counts towards playoffs qualification or for any tiebreakers, but Hamlin has two other wins that still count.
His crew chief Chris Gabehart has also been fined $100,000 for the infraction, which Toyota Racing Development (TRD) voluntarily reported to NASCAR.
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“As the engine builder for our partner NASCAR Cup Series teams, TRD is solely responsible for the handling and disposition of all our engines pre- and post-race,” David Wilson, president of TRD USA, said in a statement.
“Despite procedures being in place, Denny’s race-winning engine from Bristol was mistakenly returned to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt instead of being torn down and inspected by NASCAR per the rule book. Although we know with absolute certainty that the engine was legal and would have passed inspection, we left NASCAR in an impossible position because they were not given the opportunity to properly inspect our engine. We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again. TRD takes full responsibility for this grievous mistake, and we apologize to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, the entire JGR organization, NASCAR and our fans.”
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Hamlin was third in the regular season standings before the penalty, but now sits in sixth position 103 points behind Tyler Reddick and 93 points behind second-place Chase Elliott. Hamlin would need to win both of the final regular season races at Daytona and Darlington plus at least 26 stage points to have a mathematical chance of taking the regular season title, but only if Reddick scores the minimum one point that is available in both events and Elliott has similarly poor results.
Hamlin has three Daytona 500 wins and none in the Coke Zero 400, but BetMGM’s odds have him even with Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano to win it on Saturday night. He has also won the Southern 500 three times along with the Toyota 500 spring race at Darlington in 2020.
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