Matt Kenseth not upset with Kyle Busch over late restart at Martinsville

Matt Kenseth is not angry with teammate Kyle Busch over how Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway played out, a finish that saw Busch win while Kenseth slid from second to 15th over the final 12 laps.

The Joe Gibbs Racing drivers spent the better part of the second half running 1-2 and with the bottom lane considerably faster than the high groove, Busch and Kenseth had a gentlemen’s agreement regarding how they would conduct restarts.

That accord called for whomever was in first to concede the preferred inside position to who was in second-place, who would then back off once they had taken the green flag thus allowing the driver in the outside lane to pull in front and down into the bottom groove. From there, the two teammates would race straight-up.

Busch, Kenseth and their JGR teammates, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards, had worked out the strategy Sunday morning -- with the stipulation that if there were fewer than 10 laps remaining, the leader would pick the lane that provided the best opportunity to win.

Which is exactly what Busch did when a caution came out for Jamie McMurray’s spin on Lap 485. Because he was leading, Busch chose to restart on the inside and line up Kenseth, who had been faster and close to passing Busch just before the yellow flag, to the outside.

Busch’s decision proved wise. Positioned in the more advantageous lane, he quickly pulled away and secured his first win of the season.

“I think we did the right thing,” Busch said in the post-race winner’s press conference. “There towards the end it was time to go -- crunch time, right? Fortunately with my restart it gave me enough of a gap to get out.”

Things did not work nearly as well for Kenseth, who mired in the top lane, was freight-trained by several cars and fell to 15th -- a disappointing result not indicative of his performance.

How the sequence unfolded created speculation that perhaps Kenseth was displeased with Busch not cutting him a break at such a crucial juncture, even if they were just following the game plan conceived earlier that morning.

But Kenseth dismissed any notion of bitterness towards Busch when he spoke with reporters Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte, N.C. In fact, Kenseth expected such a move considering the circumstances.

“I assumed that there was a good possibility he was going to take the bottom,” Kenseth said. “I’m sure he felt like the biggest threat to beat him was me, and if he could get me on the outside and have some guys behind him he hadn’t had to race with most of the day, his chances were probably going to be better.

“Common sense tells you that’s the right thing to do.”

And if the roles were reversed, Kenseth says he would have made the same choice as Busch.

“My philosophy with teammates has always been to help your teammates as much as you can as long as it doesn’t hurt your own effort,” Kenseth said. “In that particular case, there was a good chance it was going to hurt his own effort and he was going to get beat by his teammate.

“So, of course, you’re going to try to do what you’ve got to do to win. That’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s what we’re paid for. That’s what your sponsors pay for. That’s what our owners want us to do.”