Denny Hamlin Used Kyle Larson’s Weapon Against Its Master in the Monster Mile

Kyle Larson was certainly in a better position than Denny Hamlin up until the end of Stage 2 for his season’s second victory at The Monster Mile. Instead, the #11 Toyota driver equaled his Hendrick teammate, William Byron’s three race wins in the 2024 NACAR Cup Series season.

From Kyle Busch against Martin Truex Jr to Alex Bowman against Kyle Larson and finally Larson against race-winner Denny Hamlin, many drivers suffered from a blatant ‘inability’ to pass the leading car. Nevertheless, for his 54th Cup Series victory, Denny seems to have taken a page from the ‘aero advantages’ book of the Next Gen car.

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Very few have displayed an understanding of the new car’s aerodynamic advancements the way Yung Money has been able to. His most recent display was at Las Vegas, where he swept both stages en route to an ‘aero masterclass’ besting Tyler Reddick and taking home Hendrick Motorsports second out of five race wins so far this season.

Denny Hamlin brought his team’s efforts one notch closer to HMS with a fourth victory at Dover, but Hamlin also canceled out Kyle Larson’s momentum gains on the slingshot to ensure the #5 got a taste of his own medicine at Dover. On a recent episode of The Teardown, The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi placed these situations under some expert dissection.

As Gluck put the front-row combatants’ perspectives in the limelight, he explained, “So, Denny Hamlin is leading. Kyle Larson thinks, ‘You know what? I can track him down. I think I have time to do it.’ And indeed, he does track Denny Hamlin down for the lead then Denny obviously knows, ‘Okay well I’m gonna do what every driver is doing these days in any sort of sizable track at all.’ And that is to try to take his air away and or shut his air off, as Kyle Larson put it after the race.”

Continuing the conversations with his co-host, Gluck then refered to Larson’s post-race interviews to draw some comparisons and similarities of race wins in recent times, amplified through Larson’s thoughts about the big ‘aero issue’ at Dover. “By the way, this is not Larson complaining… He was citing his own success in using these techniques when talking about this. So like (Larson’s) talking about: ‘Hey at Vegas when I won I just took Reddick’s air away and I won that race and then he said you know, the stage (2) that I won earlier today, I just kind of backed everybody up to me. I could see where Bowman was going and I just made sure he stayed behind me and took his air away. And it’s a technique that everybody uses now right?”.

But before losing the race off of pit road to Denny Hamlin, Dover’s Stage 2 winner threw some air blocks of his own on his P8 finishing teammate Alex Bowman. However, as the discussions evolved, Gluck had some interesting conclusions to draw on exactly what may be causing this Next Gen hurdle.

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He brought up a recent interaction with Denny Hamlin explaining the Dover victor’s primary perspectives on this visible dissatisfaction over the general lack of passing these days. Gluck continued, “I asked Denny when did this start exactly. He said it was when the 550 package started on intermediate tracks. Drivers started to figure it out and it is obviously the tool.” Explaining his initial reference, he then elaborates, “You heard Kyle Busch say this weekend that this car is better as a defensive tool than an offensive tool… It was really interesting to me that you know Larson kept saying it’s easy. He used that word multiple times to take someone’s air away.”

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“So obviously Denny did that as anybody would right? The drivers to win races are good at air blocking they have to be,” declared Jeff Gluck, while outlining the latest question mark Dover pointed towards the Next Gen cars heading out of the Wurth 400: are fans to prepare themselves for decreased aggression, the kind uncharacteristic of the world’s premier stock car racing experience? The discussions also shed light on Denny’s continuous calls for improvements on his podcast to the ‘single-file’ racing fans have witnessed on Intermediates in the last two years.

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Regardless, this victory will certainly feel sweet even for Tyler Reddick, considering he lost out in the same manner in Las Vegas, albeit redeeming himself at Talladega last week. With the superspeedway package also being affected in many ways by the rapid modifications, many questions remain unanswered. But advancements will surely shine through, sooner than later.