Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin express frustration that could boil over to Texas
Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin expressed frustration with each other after Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
Now it’s onto Texas Motor Speedway, where the pair clashed during a Chase for the Sprint Cup championship battle in 2010. It will be interesting to see if there is any carryover from Sunday’s event that was won by Johnson on the 0.526-mile Martinsville short track.
Johnson said that he was surprised Hamlin felt the need to move his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet out of the way while the two drivers were battling for seventh place on Lap 200 Sunday – less than halfway through the race.
“I'm puzzled that he had to move me like he did,” Johnson said. “The inside is a preferred lane. I gave him the inside. I had a little something working on the top. There's a line of cars behind him. I just can't roll over.
“I prefer to race people cleanly. I could have easily taken the easy route and moved him when he came back to take over the lead, and I didn't. I hope that showed him that, ‘Look, man, I don't have a beef.’ “
Hamlin, meanwhile, said his problems with Johnson of late pre-dated Martinsville.
“My side is that he really put us in a bad spot at New Hampshire (in a Chase race on Sept. 25) on a restart for 13th or 15th or something. About wrecked us pretty much,” Hamlin said. “So then I voiced my displeasure with him after the race. He understood why I was upset.
“But in return, you know, I raced him hard for the lead -- the lead -- which is a big, big difference, at Charlotte. I think that (Johnson crew chief) Chad (Knaus) and those guys were frustrated with me and how I was holding those guys up for the lead. But it is the lead.”
Then came Martinsville.
“When we got to here, we were running for seventh in the middle part of the race,” Hamlin said. “I ran him down from the back of the pack basically.
“He just wasn't wanting to give up the spot. It was just costing both of us time. It was frustrating both of us. I gave those guys many, many laps to give us the position before I had to move him.”
Johnson was not appeased by Hamlin’s explanation – or interpretation – of events.
“I don't know what he has cooking in his head, what he thinks happened at Loudon, what he thinks happened at Charlotte,” Johnson said. “Man, I'm out there to win. We got points on the line. We got a championship on the line. I got accused of racing hard? I'll take that as a compliment.”
Hamlin left it Sunday with a bit of an ominous warning.
“It’s hard racing those guys and racing them is very, very tough,” Hamlin said. “It’s out of character for him over the last few years in the Chase. They’re doing what they think is successful, but upsetting me is not going to make their job any easier.”
Texas is a place where this bubbling confrontation could escalate, even though Johnson already is locked into the Championship 4 in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The remaining seven drivers still left in the Chase, including Hamlin, are left battling to determine which three will join Johnson in a winner-take-all fight for the title in that race.
Back in 2010, the Chase elimination format had not yet been implemented by NASCAR. But after Johnson switched pit crews mid-race with Jeff Gordon during the Texas event that was won by Hamlin, Hamlin and Mike Ford, then his crew chief, took a few unveiled shots at Johnson, Knaus and the No. 48 team.
That backfired on Hamlin when everything went awry for him in the last two races of the season at Phoenix and Homestead, where the championship slipped away from him and Johnson earned his fifth consecutive title. Johnson added his sixth in 2013 and now will be going for a record-tying seventh at Homestead on Nov. 20.
Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt currently are tied with the most championships of all time in NASCAR’s Premier Series with seven apiece.
Hamlin finished second in the points standings in 2010 and has yet to win a title. His highest finish since then was third in 2014, the first year the Chase elimination format was introduced.
