NASCAR is not naturally inclined to strip wins away for reasons other than post-race technical infractions but the throttle and brake trace data has not been kind to Austin Dillon regarding what happened on the final lap at Richmond.
Dillon conceded that he had every intent to drive into the back of Joey Logano, and the eye test was more than sufficient in recognizing that, but there is this narrative out there that Denny Hamlin wrecked himself on corner exit.
That’s simply and objectively not true.
Okay, so what are we looking at here?
This is Hamlin going lower than his previous lap line in the efforts to avoid the incident between Dillon and Logano. Despite the narrative to the contrary, Hamlin did not fade up into Dillon.
Dillon, for his part, turned his steering wheel left +33.9 degrees to hit Hamlin, compared to his wheel turning right at -3.7 degrees on the previous lap to make his normal corner.
Here’s what that looks like in real time: