Hamlin Says Chevrolet Runs Through Hendrick and Drivers Have No Choice on Team Orders

Denny Hamlin did not accuse Chevrolet of fixing a race. He accused it of running a system in which fixing is beside the point, because the drivers involved never had a decision to make. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver and 23XI Racing co-owner laid out a chain of command for manufacturer orders, put Rick Hendrick at the top of it, and said the cooperation that helped Kyle Larson win at Talladega would be treated as a violation at Martinsville, where the series races on Sunday.

What did Hamlin actually say?

He started with Ross Chastain, whose Talladega afternoon is the exhibit at the centre of the row. “He’s doing what he’s told,” Hamlin said. “As a driver, you’re the lowest on the totem pole when it comes to team orders or manufacturer orders. Think about where Ross falls on the totem pole. I’m gonna put Hendrick at the top. Then, I’m gonna put below that, Chevy. Then below that I’m gonna put Trackhouse, and then below that I’m gonna have the crew chief. Then below that is the driver. That is the totem pole in which he is answering to. And if you think about it like this, they have no choice when they say that.”

Then came the line that travelled furthest. “You have to suck at the teat of the master,” Hamlin said. “I mean, that’s just the way this thing works. And I’m sorry, but that is the truth. And so you just have no choice but to do what you are told, because the way they’ve set that whole program up is it runs through the master.” The master, in Hamlin’s account, is Hendrick: “It does not run through Chevy. That Chevy Technical Center is Hendrick Motorsports Performance Center.” And the consequence, as he sees it, is permanent: “I don’t believe anyone will ever be Tier One with Chevy other than Hendrick, because they control it. And as long as you control it, you control how that information gets shared. I mean, do we really honestly believe that RCR is getting the same information as Hendrick from Chevy?”

What happened at Talladega?

Two separate moments, and Hamlin’s argument needs both. The first came as Stage 1 ended. Chastain, a lap down after a speeding penalty on pit road, was running in traffic as Toyota drivers tried to advance, and NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck reported that Bubba Wallace struggled to get around him while Chase Briscoe asked his spotter for a way to the bottom lane. Fans questioned whether Chastain’s positioning had kept Toyotas from taking stage points off Larson, who finished fourth in the stage. The second moment came at the finish. Larson dropped from the lead to 11th before recovering with a push from Chastain to beat Hendrick team-mate William Byron by 0.041 seconds in overtime, with Chastain fourth. Before the race, reporter Danielle Trotta had posted what she was hearing from the garage: Chevrolet had instructed teams to help Larson, including not letting him get hung out at the end of stages to maximise his stage points. Hamlin defended her reporting on the podcast, saying Trotta took grief for saying out loud what everyone in the garage knew: “We all know it. People just didn’t like to see it in writing.”

What did NASCAR’s review find?

No evidence of a fixed finish, which is not the same as clearing the wider complaint. Officials examined throttle data and found no evidence that Byron, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. or Cole Custer lifted to give Larson the win. EssentiallySports notes the limit of that finding plainly: it answers the allegation that drivers handed Larson the race, but it does not settle the questions about Chastain’s earlier moves in Stage 1. It also does not touch Hamlin’s information claim, for which he offered no evidence that Chevrolet distributes technical information unequally. That caveat belongs in any fair account of this row. Hamlin is describing a hierarchy he believes exists; he has not shown documents or data proving unequal sharing, and Chevrolet, Hendrick and Trackhouse have not, in the reporting so far, answered the charge directly.

Why Martinsville, and why now?

Because Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville is where Hamlin says the rules change. “Listen, all of this stuff that we’re talking about is illegal when we go to Martinsville,” he said on the podcast. “It’s just not when we come to Talladega.” The reference is specific and recent. At the 2024 Martinsville playoff race, NASCAR penalised three teams for race manipulation, fining Chastain, Austin Dillon and Wallace 100,000 dollars each and docking 50 points, after finding Chastain and Dillon formed a blockade behind Byron while Wallace slowed with Christopher Bell closing. NASCAR’s own stance, as Hamlin quotes it, is case by case, and his complaint is that case by case looks like one rule for a superspeedway and another for a short track. The timing sharpens it further: Larson can clinch the Cup championship at Martinsville on Sunday, so the driver at the centre of the Talladega row arrives at the track where Hamlin says his protection would count as manipulation.

Did Hamlin give Larson any credit?

Yes, and the concession is part of why the comments sting rather than just provoke. Hamlin said Larson earned the number one treatment with his performance in the Chase, and that the number five car has earned the right to be the guy everyone else has to look out for, even if they are not on the same team. That is not a driver saying Larson did not deserve to win. It is a driver saying the system around Larson made the win a team project, and that drivers further down the chain, like Chastain, take the criticism for orders they cannot refuse. Hamlin has made the same systems complaint before, most recently when he said he would have defied the Las Vegas pit call had he known Larson was a lap down, and the garage has heard the same frustration from other directions this month, from Christopher Bell firing back at Larson over a power-steering claim to Spire’s owner demanding proof from Joe Gibbs Racing in a separate dispute where nobody is conceding anything.

What happens next?

Martinsville is the test, in two senses. On track, officials will be watching radio communications and manufacturer cooperation at a circuit where NASCAR has already shown it will punish coordinated tactics, a stance the series underlined when it warned teams after the pit-stall spray incident at Las Vegas. Off track, Chevrolet, Hendrick, Trackhouse and Richard Childress Racing all have an open question to answer: whether Hamlin’s hierarchy is a fair description of their program or a rival driver’s exaggeration. Hamlin himself framed the stakes as a choice for the sport: if team orders are not going to be enforced, he said, then let them happen openly and let the fans say how unhappy they are when they see it done egregiously. Sunday will show whether NASCAR agrees, and whether anyone in the Chevrolet camp answers him before the green flag.