Denny Hamlin ‘befuddled’ by Shane van Gisbergen’s last lap, loss to Chris Buescher

Denny Hamlin was shocked to see Shane van Gisbergen couldn’t hold onto the lead on the final lap while racing Chris Buescher at Watkins Glen over the weekend.

Once the No. 16 wheelman got to the lead at the end of the race, Hamlin believed it was elementary for SVG, but Buescher never stopped pushing, forcing the New Zealander into a mistake and passing him. Hamlin tried to make sense of it during the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

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“I’m as equally impressed with his last lap as I was befuddled of SVG’s,” Hamlin said, regarding Buescher’s comeback on Sunday . “I thought, ‘You give SVG the lead on the last lap, he’s just not going to make a mistake. He’s disciplined enough that he’s not going to make a mistake.’ But this was caused by two things. One thing that’s not talked about enough is that the run that Buescher got through the esses to get close enough to threaten SVG.

“So, if you look coming off of one, SVG actually has a decent lead there, and then I think he just got off-line slightly through the esses, and I looked and at the top of the esses the No. 17 got a really good run on SVG, and at that point, I mean, is SVG just really kind of looking in his mirror, managing the gap, or did he make a mistake there as well? But I think that was the key moment that allowed him to think about how he’s got to get through that bus stop quickly to gap the No. 17. The No. 17 was not within striking distance until he got to the bus stop, and at that point, SVG made a mistake, and he got too close to the barrier on the right. I think he made slight contact with it. It got him slightly off-line, and at that point he missed his apex, and got off into the shit.

“Over the second half of the bus stop, the No. 17 hit his marks and got a good run off, and it was all over after that. So, I think what’s not being talked about enough is, how did the No. 17 close enough, through the eases, to then threaten SVG into making that mistake in the bus stop.”

While Shane van Gisbergen did miss his mark, Chris Buescher forced him into a pressure cooker on the final lap, and when the New Zealander left the door ajar a little bit, the RFK Racing wheelman kicked it down. Consider Denny Hamlin impressed, as Chris Buescher stole a win on Sunday in New York.

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