- Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin’s rivalry seems to have ended.
- The duo raced each other clean at Texas after several skirmishes in the past.
- Elliott made his stance clear about his expectations for Hamlin.
Chase Elliott won his second race of the season, and he did so by outdueling former rival Denny Hamlin. Given their past, many expected sparks to fly with both drivers at the front, perhaps contact, perhaps a run to the wall, something to settle old scores. But None of that came to pass.
Instead, the two raced within the lines. Elliott led 87 laps and took the win despite starting from 14th on the grid.
Elliott makes it clear, “He shows me respect, I show him respect”
The two drivers have traded blows over the years, with contact, run-ins, and pit road exchanges forming part of their shared history, but the Texas race followed a different screenplay altogether, where both of them raced maturely without creating any kind of chaos.
Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR, Elliott reflected on the closing laps against the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. He said, “It is funny how that, I feel like he and I have raced for, obviously he’s won a hell of a lot more than I have, but a lot of the races that I’ve been having opportunities to win or whatever, it seems like he and I are racing for wins a lot. So, I feel like there’s a lot of mutual respect there, and it makes those moments fun.”
“Because I feel like he shows me respect, I show him respect, and we can go out there and race really hard and know that you have that, and a competitor is really, really cool. So, yeah, glad that I know it doesn’t always work out in our favor, but certainly glad it did today. Second win in three years at Texas Motor Speedway,” Elliott continued.
During the race, Elliott could not get a hold of the race until Lap 152 of 267, when Corey Heim brought his Toyota to pit road under an off-cycle fuel strategy. From there, the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports driver took charge, assisted by a pit crew that delivered its three fastest stops of the season on Sunday.
A spin by Heim in Turn 4 brought out the seventh and final caution. On the restart, with a push from teammate Alex Bowman, who went on to finish third, Elliott cleared Hamlin off Turn 2 and pulled away to win by 0.407 seconds. Hamlin had reason to rue the caution with 11 laps to go, but he still tossed well on the final restart.
Hamlin, for his part, accepted the outcome without fuss. “Yeah, I thought I got a good restart there at the end, side-by-side. But then, you know, just the way the side-draft works there into Turn 1, with him getting the push from the 48 (Bowman), it just allowed his momentum to pick up a little bit quicker than mine. I tried to hang on to the side, but I was just getting tighter the closer I was getting to him. So good, decent day. Just one short,” he said.
Past feuds between Elliott and Hamlin
Their history, though, is a different story. The rivalry between Elliott and Hamlin goes back to 2017 and has featured retaliation and incidents. It began in the playoffs that year with two flashpoints.
At Martinsville, Elliott led late while chasing his first Cup win when Hamlin made contact from behind, spinning him and denying him a path to the Championship 4. The move led to a confrontation between the two on pit road.
Two weeks later, at Phoenix, Elliott returned the favor, crowding Hamlin into the outside wall while racing for position. The contact led to a tire failure and a crash, knocking Hamlin out of the Championship 4.
After a stretch of races without incident, the feud resurfaced at the 2023 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Hamlin forced Elliott toward the wall, and Elliott responded by hooking Hamlin’s right rear, sending both cars into a crash. NASCAR issued a one-race suspension to Elliott. Hamlin backed the move by sharing telemetry data to support the case of intent.
Against that background, Texas stood miles apart with no bump, no shove, and no score to settle.
