Denny Hamlin explains why 23XI will not appeal Bubba Wallace’s penalty after Chicago incident

Denny Hamlin just announced that 23XI Racing will not appeal the penalty Bubba Wallace received after hitting Alex Bowman at the end of the Chicago Street Race. At the Harmful acts In the podcast, Hamlin explained why they accepted the $50,000 fine.

“Why drag it out?” Hamlin asked. “Let it go. You learn from the mistake, and it was a mistake. (Wallace) shouldn’t have done it, and you just move on.”

Wallace met Bowman – who won the race last week – after Bowman had met Wallace earlier in the race. Bowman admitted he “ruined” Wallace’s day and said he made a big mistake.

“I ruined his day. We really had a — the restart was chaotic,” Bowman said during the post-race press conference. “I just made every wrong decision possible and fought with my wiper switch to get the thing going, but I couldn’t get it right and I was focused on it, missed the corner and passed him. I locked all four tires and slid right into him. I just messed it up and absolutely ruined his day.”

Bubba Wallace wants to continue after $50,000 fine

Before competing in the Pocono Race, Wallace explained why the $50,000 is a good thing for him. “I was unhappy for years and walked around with a personality that I’m not proud of,” Wallace told reporters. “I have to apologize to a lot of people, especially those close to me. … I just got frustrated and tried way too hard and didn’t focus on the right things. The slamming of the door, the push that Bowman said wasn’t hard at all. For the people that have wanted me out of the sport for the last four or five years. But those people don’t really understand that when you say — road courses, let’s talk about road courses.

“How many years have I been terrible on road courses? Seven, right? So I put my heart and soul into improving and spending time with the team and the simulator and trying to get better. Coming into Chicago was our best road course race ever and that was ruined in two turns when the conditions changed because we were messing around with switches. We all know you mess around with switches. You don’t mess around with switches on the smallest part of the track and you have seven or eight caution laps.”

Jonathan Howard of On3 contributed to this story.