In addition to losing his win, officials slapped a $25,000 fine and two-race suspension on his crew chief while also docking his team 25 points after they discovered an illegal part measurement on his car during a post-race inspection.
An executive from Joe Gibbs Racing has already addressed the situation in which NASCAR revoked Denny Hamlin’s XFINITY Series win from this last weekend, and has said that they will “make sure it doesn’t happen again”.
Stealing the show in the No. 20 Hisense Toyota, Hamlin celebrated his win in Victory Lane, but as of mid-week NASCAR had changed the win on record, marking it as “encumbered” after reviewing the results of a full inspection.
During the inspection, officials determined that Hamlin’s car held an illegal splitter structure on it during the race. The rulebook states that the splitter must be perfectly flat, and in this case it did not fall within regulations. They levied an L1 penalty against the team, revoked the win, and issued fines and suspension to the crew chief.
“The rules are pretty clear,” Joe Gibbs Racing VP of operations, Jimmy Makar, said. “It’s something where we were wrong with what we had there. We’ll take our penalty and move forward.”
“The rules on the Xfinity side say your splitter has to be perfectly flat,” He continued. “There was some shape on the splitter that didn’t quite meet the rules the way it was supposed to be. It was an unfortunate thing that happened. We were a little off what we were supposed to be. We have to look back at that and how it happened and why and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Watch the video below of Hamlin’s photo finish at Michigan International Speedway and let us know if you agree with NASCAR’s decision in the comments.