NASCAR Cup frontrunner Denny Hamlin has been handed a sizeable 75-point deduction for an engine infringement on his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota from earlier this year.
The issue goes back to Hamlin's victory at Bristol Motor Speedway in March. The #11 team have been slammed with an L2-level penalty for failing to meet NASCAR's engine seal requirements.
The penalty is crushing. Hamlin loses 75 driver and owner points, dropping him from third to sixth in the regular season standings. The loss of 10 playoff points will also be taken from his total of 21, slicing it down to 11. The team has also been fined $100,000.
NASCAR explained the penalty with the following statement, noting that Toyota reported the issue itself: “Each race-winning engine must be inspected by NASCAR once the race team determines that its life cycle is complete.
“In this instance, prior to presenting the engine to NASCAR for inspection, Toyota Racing Development disassembled and rebuilt the #11’s Bristol-winning race engine.
“Per the NASCAR Rule Book, this violation results in an L2 penalty to the race team and driver. Toyota Racing Development self-reported this violation.”
Toyota Racing released a statement after the penalties were announced, confessing that this stemmed from a mistake on its part.
“As the engine builder for our partner NASCAR Cup Series teams, TRD is solely responsible for the handling and disposition of all our engines pre- and post-race,” it said.
“Despite procedures being in place, Denny’s race-winning engine from Bristol was mistakenly returned to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt instead of being torn down and inspected by NASCAR per the rulebook.
“Although we know with absolute certainty that the engine was legal and would have passed inspection, we left NASCAR in an impossible position because they were not given the opportunity to properly inspect our engine.
“We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again.
“TRD takes full responsibility for this grievous mistake, and we apologise to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, the entire JGR organisation, NASCAR and our fans.”
