Denny Hamlin was forced to a backup car in the final moments of final practice for the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard.
Hamlin, who completed 23 laps in the session, was heading into Turn 4 when he had a tire go down resulting in hard contact with the wall.
“It was the last corner and I think the red flag had been out for a minute or so,” Hamlin said. “We had just got into Turn 1 when the red went out and we were going to finish our lap. It just blew a right-front. We hadn’t seen any wear issues so we might have run something over or whatever. Definitely got my attention.”
Hamlin was able to stop at the entrance of pit road to exit his car that caught fire. The team will roll out the backup car for the race. Hamlin was forced to a backup car in July at New Hampshire and he went on to finish second after leading 113 laps.
“The good news is that I think our backup is an okay car,” Hamlin said. “We’ll go to work and come from the back, again and see if we can’t win another one.”
After looking at the practice tire off the 11 car of Denny Hamlin, there was damage on the inboard shoulder of the RF tire due to high heat.
— Goodyear Racing (@GoodyearRacing) September 7, 2019
