Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing crew have been hit with a pricy penalty after Toyota tore down an engine earlier than it may very well be inspected by NASCAR following Hamlin’s victory at Bristol Motor Speedway means again in March.
NASCAR defined the L2-level penalty was issued for failing to fulfill NASCAR’s engine seal necessities with the next assertion, noting that Toyota reported the difficulty themselves: “Every race-winning engine should be inspected by NASCAR as soon as the race crew determines that its life cycle is full. On this occasion, previous to presenting the engine to NASCAR for inspection, Toyota Racing Growth disassembled and rebuilt the No. 11’s Bristol-winning race engine. Per the NASCAR Rule E book, this violation ends in an L2 penalty to the race crew and driver. Toyota Racing Growth self-reported this violation.”
The crushing resolution from the sequence’ sees Hamlin lose 75 driver and proprietor factors, dropping him from third to sixth within the common season standings. The lack of ten playoff factors can even be taken from his whole of 21, slicing it right down to 11. A race win is value 5 playoff factors. The crew has additionally been fined $100,000.
Toyota Racing launched a press release after the penalties had been introduced, confessing that this was a mistake on their finish.
“Because the engine builder for our associate NASCAR Cup Sequence groups, TRD is solely answerable for the dealing with and disposition of all our engines pre- and post-race. Regardless of procedures being in place, Denny’s race profitable engine from Bristol was mistakenly returned to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt as a substitute of being torn down and inspected by NASCAR per the rulebook.
“Though we all know with absolute certainty that the engine was authorized and would have handed inspection, we left NASCAR in an not possible place as a result of they weren’t given the chance to correctly examine our engine. We’ve got reviewed our processes and have applied a number of extra steps to make sure that this by no means occurs once more. TRD takes full accountability for this grievous mistake, and we apologize to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, your complete JGR group, NASCAR and our followers.”
