“Upsetting Personally on Me”- JGR Crew Chief Takes Full Blame for Critical Las Vegas Pit Strategy Flaw

For a while, Denny Hamlin had Las Vegas right where he wanted it. Starting from the pole, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver wasted little time showing why he was chasing a third straight win at the track, leading the opening 34 laps and controlling the early pace. Then, in the space of a few crucial moments, the race began slipping away. A costly pit strategy call put Hamlin in a vulnerable position before a fuel pump issue made matters worse, leaving crew chief Chris Gayle to take the blame for a decision that still bothers him.

“Yeah, it’s upsetting. It’s upsetting personally on me. I wish I had stayed out on that pit stop on lap 38 or whatever. It was right on the cusp of where I knew five guys were going to stay out. And it was just a matter of, okay, if the 19 and 20 had come down with us, and I don’t know what they were going to do because we’re racing each other, right? Then we’d have been right there and just about gotten back to the lead,” Denny Hamlin’s crew chief Chris Gayle answered when asked about the costly strategic decision that altered the No. 11 Toyota’s afternoon.

Hamlin had led the opening 34 laps before making his scheduled green-flag stop. After the field cycled, Hamlin had returned to the front when a caution for Zane Smith’s spin created the pivotal strategic decision.

Gayle elected to bring Hamlin to pit road for two tires, even though Hamlin had already stopped shortly before the caution. The decision proved costly because several drivers stayed out, leaving Hamlin ninth for the restart.

Kyle Larson, meanwhile, had fallen a lap down after a lengthy 26-second stop for major adjustments, and Hamlin’s pit stop allowed Larson to take the wave-around and return to the lead lap, albeit on older tires. From there, Hamlin had to attack.

The No. 11 climbed from ninth to fourth during the first stage as he desperately tried to recover the track position and collect stage points. But while running high in Turn 4 on Lap 78, Hamlin lost control of the Toyota and spun. He avoided another car and did not bring out a caution. However, the trip across the apron damaged the splitter. Hamlin, as a result, dropped all the way to 28th by the end of the stage, leaving him with zero Stage 1 points.

That damage became a problem Hamlin and Gayle could never fully solve. Gayle explained that the splitter stays were bent, the underside had picked up surface damage, and sections of the diffuser had been torn away. The team tried lowering the car to recover some of the lost performance, but there was no simple repair that could restore the damaged front nose of the race car.

Hamlin nevertheless fought his way back. After dropping into the low 20s, he recovered to 14th by the end of Stage 2, giving the team a chance to salvage what had become a difficult afternoon. Then another problem struck.

On Lap 170, while preparing for a restart, Hamlin reported that he had no fuel pressure on pump one. The team switched to pump two and recycled the engine, but the issue cost Hamlin another 12 positions. Gayle said the team still needed to investigate whether the failure involved the pump’s power supply or an ECU issue.

Hamlin managed to claw back several spots during the final 96-lap run, but the damage was already done. He finished 16th, 15 positions worse than where he started. The result also allowed Larson to extend his championship lead from 26 points to 40 with five races remaining. For Hamlin, the frustration was not simply about the finish. He knew the No. 11 had started the day with genuine winning speed.

“We haven’t had any [catastrophic] days but certainly had our fair share of not performing,” a subdued Hamlin said. “Today, leaving a bazillion points on the table considering where we were before the wreck.”

And that is what made Gayle’s admission particularly painful. The crew chief was not blaming the bad luck alone. He was looking back at the Lap 38 decision and wondering whether staying out could have kept Hamlin near the front.

A race that began with Hamlin leading from pole ended with his championship deficit growing, and Gayle accepting that one strategic call had helped set the entire afternoon on the wrong course.

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