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Las Vegas takeaways: Denny Hamlin is the biggest loser of the first playoff race

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer

Denny Hamlin finds himself at the bottom of the playoff standings after Las Vegas.

Hamlin spun through the grass on lap 247 as he was running the high line through turns 3 and 4. Once his car hit the infield the grass tore the front end off the car and ended his race. Hamlin said the spin was a byproduct of overdriving his car and trying to get too much.

[Brad Keselowski wins wild playoff opener]

“It was tough. We didn’t have the speed today,” Hamlin said. We had a 15 to 20th place car. We have to keep working hard for the rest of the season and hopefully keep improving for our next half-mile track.”

Hamlin finished 32nd and got five points for his efforts. He’s 20 points behind Alex Bowman for the final spot among the 12 drivers who will advance to the second round.

If it’s any consolation for Hamlin, the next playoff race is at Richmond, a track where he’s been very good. He has three wins there and has finished in the top 10 in 15 of his 24 starts. He’ll need to excel again to make up the gap on Bowman and pass the cars ahead of him.

Harvick: Tires were like ‘Russian Roulette’

Kevin Harvick’s race ended when he slammed into the wall because of a blown right-front tire on lap 148. He said after he was cleared from the infield care center that the tires were inconsistent from pit stop to pit stop. His team didn’t know what to expect.

“Well, there was something wrong from the time we put the tires on,” Harvick said. “It was like Russian Roulette every time you put these piece of crap tires on and try to drive around the race track. One time it is tight, one time it is loose, one time they are blistered. We had a great car and then you put a set of tires on it and you can’t hardly make it through the field.”

A statement from Goodyear unsurprisingly disputed Harvick’s comments and blamed teams’ setup choices for tire issues. Harvick’s team was not the only one who dealt with a tire problem during Sunday’s race.

Thanks to the 50 playoff points Harvick amassed during the regular season his tire failure didn’t matter as much as it could have. He’s still fourth in the points standings.

Jimmie Johnson hits the wall late

Jimmie Johnson had the fastest car he’s had in a long, long time on Sunday. He was even in the top five for an extended period of time. That all came to a crashing halt in the final laps of the race when Johnson smashed into the wall.

Johnson was forced to pit and ended up 22nd. He’s currently 13th in the standings, six points out of the top 12. He would have been easily inside the top 12 if it wasn’t for the cut tire and subsequent wall contact.

“We had good speed in the car, good pit stops, everything was going well and unfortunately, cut a right-front tire when we touched [Kurt Busch] off of Turn 2,” Johnson said. “I don’t know how next week is going to go, I really don’t and I sure as hell don’t know how the [Charlotte roval] is going to go. So, sure, we finished higher than some guys, but any cushion we could have gotten today would have been nice.”

NBC had a mess at the end of the race

The race at Vegas went long thanks to six cautions over the race’s final 60 laps. That pushed the Cup Series race into the start of the IndyCar season finale at Sonoma. The Cup race was in a red flag when the IndyCar race started and NBC cut over to the IndyCar race as the track got cleaned up in Las Vegas.

There was no warning to viewers that the IndyCar race was starting on CNBC until after the broadcast had started. while NBC cut to the IndyCar race seconds after the green flag dropped, it’s fair to say that the network missed the start of the race.

“Due to a red flag near the end of today’s NASCAR race in Las Vegas, coverage of the IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma began on CNBC and our streaming platforms,” an NBC statement said. “For a brief period, INDYCAR was simulcast on CNBC and NBCSN, while NASCAR remained in a red flag. When NASCAR overtime began on NBCSN, IndyCar coverage remained on CNBC and resumed on NBCSN when NASCAR coverage concluded. Coverage of both races were always available on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.”

It’s also worth wondering why IndyCar didn’t hold the start of the race until after the NASCAR race was over. IndyCar’s audience dwarfs NASCAR’s. It does the series no good to start the race until the NASCAR race was over and force motorsports fans to choose between the end of the Cup race and the start of the IndyCar race.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.


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