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Denny Hamlin takes responsibility for strange incident with Kyle Larson in Iowa

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A series of extremely unfortunate collisions occurred between Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin on Sunday at the Iowa Speedway.

Before both of them had an accident on lap 221, there was a strange incident in which Hamlin drove straight into the back of Larson after overtaking him, causing him to leave the track.

Despite occasional on-track incidents, Larson and Hamlin are good friends off the track and there is no serious animosity between the two. In real time, Larson said over his team radio, “What the hell was that?” before being reassured by crew chief Cliff Daniels, who said, “We’ll let it go,” even if “I don’t understand it either.”

Both were then involved in the multi-car accident on lap 220 and barely managed to finish P24 (Hamlin) and P34 (Larson) respectively.

“That was my mistake, I accelerated too early and came up behind him,” Hamlin told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports after the race. “Luckily, everyone held on.”

Larson holds no grudges after the race.

“Yeah, we lapped him and then, I don’t know, he just slightly ran into me from behind and put me on the race track,” Larson said. “I doubt it was intentional, I don’t know why it would be intentional, but yeah, I was just frustrated at the time, but I kept going.”

What about round 220?

The major multi-car crash involving both competitors and Daniel Suarez was widely considered Racing deal from all parties.

“If I could see a replay, I would tell you what went wrong, whether it was my fault or what,” Larson said after the race. “I mean, if I’m not three abreast there, there probably won’t be an accident, but I’m probably sixth going into Turn 1, but either way, sixth is better than an accident. Yeah, I don’t know. Like I said, I think I just should have paid more attention to my fellow drivers. Suárez is really aggressive, and I don’t know. He probably just pushed and got out from under me, I guess.”

Suárez bore the main responsibility for this.

“Honestly, I was so confused during the race, 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 watched the replay for the very first time and noticed the 6 (Keselowski) was the one that was on the outside. He was about a quarter of the car from the wall because he was trying to pinch the 5 (Larson), and then the 5 was another quarter of the car from the 6 trying to pinch me, and I expected those two guys to be closer to the wall like everyone else. I mean, I’m definitely… I’m the one that touched the 5, and I take responsibility for that, but I felt like they were deeper than I expected.”

Matt Weaver is a motorsports insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Þjórsárden.

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