Denny Hamlin gives verdict on Cindric penalty: "A foul is a foul"

Denny Hamlin has reacted to the penalty levied against Austin Cindric after he clashed with Ty Dillon at the NASCAR Cup Series race in Phoenix.

The Team Penske driver hooked Dillon's car on lap 4 of as they approached the frontstretch. Angered at how Dillon had pushed him wide, Cindric retaliated by tapping the rear side of the car sending it into the wall, leaving the Kaulig Racing driver's car with substantial damage.

Fans expected Cindric to be given a race suspension for the behaviour, but instead, he was given a $50,000 fine and docked 50 driver points.

Dillon himself wasn't happy about how NASCAR reacted to the incident, with him expecting a harsher reaction.

“I was expecting a one-race suspension,” he said via The Athletic's Jeff Gluck. “I’m glad they did something though. I think 50 points and $50,000 is probably enough to make him think about doing something like that again. But I think a one-race suspension is what most of us expected. They set a standard a couple years ago.”

He continued: “That’s where maybe NASCAR gets themselves in a little bit of trouble, is when you try to play in grey areas of what’s fast enough. … We’ve just got to [do] a better job of just making those calls black and white and setting a little bit better standard.”

Hamlin revealed his feelings to Bob Pockrass, clearly disagreeing with NASCAR's choice of penalty.

“You just judge intent,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t think the result should matter it’s the intent that really should matter. As far as what was the intent, that is something NASCAR can determine. Looking at SMT Data will tell officials exactly what happened. It would show Cindric turning into Dillon and would be an outlier among his other data.

“I didn’t, so I didn’t see the data, I didn’t look at it then and I frankly didn’t have time to look at it this week. So, I don’t know. I don’t know what the intent was, I’d have to investigate it but that’s not my job.”

Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, FedEx Toyota Camry

Photo by: Danny Hansen / NKP / Motorsport Images

Similar to that of Dillon, the 23XI Racing team co-owner wants more consistency in the rulings and penalties given out by the racing series.

“Yeah I mean, that’s what it’s designed [for]. … Certainly any time you have a new rule there’s always going to be cause and effect to it, right?

“Sometimes it’s going to seem worse than it should be and sometimes it will seem like not enough. But that’s where you kind of got to draw the line and say it doesn’t matter what the result is, a foul is a foul, a flagrant one is a flagrant one.”