RELATED: Sonoma results | Post-Sonoma Power Rankings
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Defending Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin calmly answered questions Thursday about Tony Stewart‘s winning, final-turn pass of Hamlin in last week’s road course race in Sonoma, California.
And Hamlin chalked up his runner-up finish to simply being “out-experienced” in that form of racing by Stewart, NASCAR’s winningest active road course driver with eight wins.
“I’ve not been in that position before, I’ve not been in a situation to win on road courses,” Hamlin told reporters at Daytona International Speedway. “I really didn’t know the proper move. I thought I had two car lengths, and looking back at film, I had three.
“I went to the same breaking point and wheel-hopped. I just made a mistake being in a position I’ve never been in before. But now I have confidence going into a road course. … Now I know I can win on a road course.”
Hamlin, who has never won a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series road course race, led a race-best 33 of 110 laps. It ties a career-best effort — he also led 33 laps at Sonoma in 2009. However, Hamlin has never led a single lap at the series’ other road course in Watkins Glen, New York.
He joked that before the Sonoma race, he would have been happy with a top-10 finish, but as the laps wore on and he ran so well, his expectations changed. Even without collecting the win, the runner-up finish matches a career-best on a road course, first set in 2007 at Watkins Glen.
“I didn’t let Tony win, I made a mistake,” said Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota. “I didn’t execute very good. Ultimately, I thought even though I made a mistake we’d drag race to the line since we were side-by-side out of the final corner. I thought this could be good, but once I saw him steer to the left, I knew that was over with. He had an opportunity, and he took it. If I’m in his situation, I’d probably do the same.
“My biggest mistake, I feel like, was not recognizing the gap that I had behind me. I don’t know whether Tony would have gotten there or not; I felt it would have been close if he really wanted to carry the car down there and whether he would have still gotten to me.
“I still needed to execute to make him make that decision, and instead I kinda made the decision for him.”