Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin had a very unfortunate series of run-ins on Sunday at Iowa Speedway.
Before both were taken out on a Lap 221 crash, there was an odd incident where Hamlin drove flat into the back of Larson after getting lapped, sending the latter up the track.
Despite the occasional on-track incident, Larson and Hamlin are good friends off the track, and there is no serious ill will between the two. In real time, Larson said ‘what the fuck was that,’ over his team radio before being calmed down by crew chief Cliff Daniels who said ‘we are going to let it go,’ even if ‘I don’t understand it either.’
Both were then involved in the multi-car crash on Lap 220 and limped their cars home to a P24 (Hamlin) and P34 (Larson) result respectively.
“Was my mistake, I gassed up too soon and ran into the back of him,” Hamlin told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports after the race. “Luckily, everybody held onto it.”
Larson isn’t holding onto any animus after the race.
“Yeah we lapped him and then, I don’t know, he just lightly got in the back of me and got me up the race track,” Larson said. “I doubt it was intentional, I wouldn’t see why it would be intentional, but yeah I was just frustrated then but moved on.”
What about Lap 220?
The big multi-car crash that involved both contenders and Daniel Suarez has generally been characterized as a racing deal by all parties.
“If I could see a replay, I would tell you what went wrong, if it was my fault or what,” Larson said after the race. “I mean, obviously if I don’t go three-wide there, there’s probably no crash but I’m probably running sixth into Turn 1 so, but either way sixth is better than crash. Yeah, I don’t know. Like I said, I think just, I should have been more aware of who I was around. Suárez is really aggressive, and I don’t know. He was probably just pushing and got loose, I’m guessing, underneath me.”
Suárez took most of the responsibility for that one.
“Honestly, during the race I was so confused, I didn’t know what happened,” Suárez told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass. “I didn’t know if I went up or he came down. I just saw the replay for the very first time, and I noticed that the 6 (Keselowski) was the one that was on the outside, he had like a quarter of a car from the wall because he was trying to pinch down the 5 (Larson), and then the 5 had another quarter of a car to the 6, trying to pinch me down, and I was expecting those two guys to be closer to the wall like everyone else. I mean, I’m definitely … I’m the one that made contact with the 5, and I take responsibility for that, but I felt like they were lower than I was expecting.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.