Sunday at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania was, for the most part, a typical NASCAR Cup Series race day — until it wasn’t not long after the checkered flag flew.
Denny Hamlin crossed the finish line first Sunday in the M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at the 2.5-mile track nicknamed the “Tricky Triangle,” with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Kyle Busch, right behind him in second and Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott in third.
But then, in an exceptionally rare move for NASCAR’s top-tier series, officials disqualified both Hamlin’s and Busch’s teams after their cars failed the post-race inspection, making Elliott the winner. It was… shocking.
So although we don’t have a ton of details about what exactly happened at Pocono, here’s what we do know.
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After the Pocono race, things went on as usual until the ruling came down
Following the race, Hamlin celebrated his third win of the season with his team with the Pocono trophy and some celebratory Coca-Cola, one of Hamlin’s sponsors. Hamlin led 21 of the race’s 160 laps, while Busch led for 63.
But about two hours after the race ended, reporters on the ground in Long Pond, Pennsylvania began reporting that both Hamlin and Busch were disqualified. And that made Elliott the winner — it’s his fourth win of the season — and bumped everyone else’s finish up by two spots.
So now, the finishing order is Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Daniel Suárez, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Michael McDowell, Martin Truex Jr., Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones and Austin Dillon rounding out the top-10 drivers. Hamlin and Busch are credited with 35th and 36th, respectively.
When was the last time a NASCAR winner was disqualified?
It’s been a long time for the Cup Series.
According to NASCAR, Hamlin is the first Cup race winner to be disqualified since 1960. Back then at Wilson Speedway in North Carolina, Emanuel Zervakis was disqualified for having an oversized fuel tank, which made Joe Weatherly the eventual winner.
There have been a handful of other NASCAR winners DQ’d recently, but they’ve been in the second-tier Xfinity Series or third-tier Truck Series. More via NASCAR:
“There have been three winners whose cars were disqualified post-race since 2019, when NASCAR implemented harsher post-race inspection penalties: Kyle Busch in 2020 at Texas in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (Austin Cindric was declared the winner); Denny Hamlin in 2019 at Darlington in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (Cole Custer was declared the winner); and Ross Chastain in 2019 at Iowa Speedway in the Truck Series (Brett Moffitt was declared the winner).”
While a Cup winner getting disqualified is particularly rare, NASCAR made it clear at the beginning of the season that unapproved modifications to the Next Gen car — which debuted in the Cup Series this year — would lead to heavier punishments with potentially serious and long-term implications. Earlier this season, Brad Keselowski and his No. 6 RFK Racing Ford team were handed a very stiff punishment for messing with the Next Gen parts supplied by the universal vendors — though he wasn’t disqualified, just docked a lot of points and his crew chief was suspended.
So what did NASCAR say about Hamlin’s and Busch’s DQs?
Post-race inspections are an established practice. Fail inspection, receive a penalty.
NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran said the issue with the two Joe Gibbs Racing cars was in the front fascia, or the nose of the car.
“There was some issues discovered that affect aero of the vehicle,” Moran said Sunday night. “The part was the front fascia. There really was no reason why there was some material that was somewhere it shouldn’t have been, and that does basically come down to a DQ.”
So what does that really mean? Basically, that part on both cars was modified enough with extra materials not permitted by NASCAR, and in the governing body’s eyes, it was enough for disqualification.
And NASCAR isn’t done with the two cars either. Moran noted that the No. 11 Toyota and the No. 18 Toyota were headed back to NASCAR’s R&D Center in North Carolina to “look much closer at both vehicles”, and he said he doesn’t anticipate any additional penalties, like suspensions or docked points, for either team.
But that’s about as specific as he’d get in explaining what happened.
“I can’t get into all the details of what the issues were, but both vehicles had the same issue, and unfortunately they were not acceptable to pass the inspection,” Moran said.
“It is partly to do with the new car, and the rules have tightened up, and everyone has to kind of abide by our new rules, which everybody is well aware of.”
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller addressed the DQs Monday afternoon on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio:
Is there any recourse for Hamlin and Busch?
Yes. Joe Gibbs Racing can appeal the decision by NASCAR, and it had until noon (presumably eastern time) on Monday to do so. The appeal would have been heard sometime this week, FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass reported.
Joe Gibbs Racing also released a statement, via NASCAR.com:
“We were shocked to learn of the infraction that caused our two cars to fail NASCAR’s post-race technical inspection,” team owner Joe Gibbs said in a statement. “We plan to review every part of the process that led to this situation.”
But NASCAR announced Monday afternoon that JGR is not appealing either disqualification: “The deadline has passed. No appeal requested by the Nos. 11 and 18 teams.”
Given the parity of this Cup season with 14 different winners through 21 races — and five to go before the end of the regular season — and everyone hoping to be locked into one of the 16 playoff spots, it seems shocking that JGR didn’t appeal. There’s far too much at stake with plenty of room for more than 16 winners in the regular season, meaning it might take more than one checkered flag to be guaranteed a playoff berth.
With the adjusted regular-season standings accounting for the two DQs, Elliott is at the top, while Busch is eighth and Hamlin is 21st. However, in the projected playoff picture, Hamlin would be ranked eighth and Busch 10th.
