About 50 yards away from Victory Lane, Denny Hamlin sat glumly on the pit wall and tossed a sports drink bottle to the ground in frustration.
Glum-Faced Denny Hamlin Disappointed By Phoenix Finish
“This is one of the bigger letdowns I’ve had,” he said, and it was easy to understand why.
Hamlin did everything he was supposed to do on Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway: He ran up front, led the most laps of anyone and, if things had shaken out a little differently, was in position to take a commanding lead into the season finale at Homestead.
If there had been a late caution or his team had employed a different fuel mileage strategy, Hamlin wouldn’t have finished 12th and seen his points lead trimmed from 33 to 15 over Jimmie Johnson.
In fact, he may have had a lead of 70 or 80 points if things had turned out differently.
So Hamlin was pissed, disappointed, frustrated – and wore the look of someone who had just lost the championship.
As reporters asked questions to the normally talkative Hamlin, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said little.
Will it be hard to sleep with all that’s on the line this week?
“No, I’ll be alright,” Hamlin said. “I’ll be OK.”
What do you think went wrong with the strategy?
“We were short on fuel and so we had to stop,” he said flatly.
This one clearly stung. This one had the potential to ruin a driver’s mental game. Will Hamlin let it affect him?
"Knowing that we had a very, very good points lead with 15 or 20 to go that quickly diminishes, it hurts," he said. "It hurts when you have a car that can possibly win."
But Hamlin pledged that when the wheels of his jet parted ways with the Arizona earth, he’d leave all the emotions associated with the Phoenix race behind as well. This setback, he said, would be used as motivation to fuel his fire at Homestead.
“I couldn’t control (the outcome),” he said. “I did everything I was supposed to do today. Things didn’t work out for me. All I can do is concentrate on next week once Monday comes and put it behind me.”
He ended his answer by revealing what bothered him the most.
“I feel like we’ve been the best car over this Chase,” he said, “and we might not win it.”
Hamlin’s strategy for Homestead? Simple: Go out and win. That’s the most realistic way to secure his first Cup championship, he said.
"Full court press will be on," he said. "It will be one of those things where you'll probably see me as aggressive as I've been all year."
Asked again about the fuel strategy, Hamlin said he was never alerted that he needed to save fuel in the first place – so he never tried saving any. He figured everyone was going to have to pit.
They didn’t.
“Like I said, I did my job,” he said.
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