Wallace has no lingering ill will toward Hamlin, but losing Kansas still hurts

Bubba Wallace cleared the air with Denny Hamlin on Saturday at the Charlotte Roval, but it didn’t completely erase the pain of not winning last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race.

“It was definitely a somber week, for sure, and I hate that it got to this point,” Wallace said. “But Denny and I just talked 30 minutes ago, and it was a good heart-to-heart conversation. It came from a place of peace. It went better than I thought it would, and he shared his side of things, and I shared mine, and we had common ground.”

Neither Wallace nor Hamlin won the most recent race at Kansas Speedway after Hamlin made a move on the final lap that affected them both. Hamlin drove into Turn 3 on the second overtime attempt and got tight underneath Wallace, which moved them both to the wall. Wallace hit the wall. Hamlin lost enough momentum to allow Chase Elliott to drive by and steal the win.

 Wallace let Hamlin speak first when the two met, but he didn’t let Hamlin speak for long before he changed the direction of how the conversation was going to play out.

“He started talking, and five seconds in, I said, ‘Just so you know, I’m not mad about getting fenced going for the win,’” Wallace said. “His eyes were [a little wide] and he said, ‘Oh, well, I need to reposition where I’m going to go,’ just so we’re all clear on that. It’s not going to be the last time that I’m battling for a win and it doesn’t go our way in that sort of fashion, whether that’s Denny or anybody in the field. But I’ll be a little gracious here and say 95 percent of the people on this side of the catch fence look at that move as 'oof,' while the other 5 percent …  they see the other side of it.

“I don’t fault Denny Hamlin for racing for a win and for racing his team and his sponsors. I get the question a lot – what’s it like racing Denny on the racetrack? No offense to them, but I could give two [expletives] because he’s a competitor and he’s labeled it that way. That was two competitors going for a win. As much as it didn’t work out, I have to respect that. I think Dale (Earnhardt Jr.) said it – I have every right to be [expletive] off about it.”

Hamlin finished second and is comfortably above the Cup Series playoff grid cutline by 48 points. Wallace, who would have advanced into the Round of 8 with a victory, sits below the cutline by 26 points. Sunday at the Charlotte Roval is the final race in the Round of 12.

The move resulted in a week’s worth of discussion about whether Hamlin should or should not have raced a car he co-owns the way he did, especially given the stakes. Monday, in his newest podcast episode, Hamlin offered no apologies. He and Wallace both agree that Hamlin is the driver in that situation, not the car owner.

“My biggest thing was that Toyota didn’t win, and before I left my motorhome after the race, I texted Toyota reps to apologize that we didn’t win,” Wallace said. “We had five in the top five to take the green flag there on the last restart, and none of us won. … It was all the people that got affected; that’s where my frustration came from because I felt like I was stepping up for them.

“While the conversation went really well, the pain is still there a little bit, but it definitely eased it. I appreciate Denny’s comments. I never want him to back down in any scenario, but I didn’t get a chance to see the rest of the corner, so that sucks.”