Steve Letarte and Jeff Burton explain Hamlin's L-2 penalty

it's a bit complicated on paper but really a simple Mistake by Toyota Racing development the engine provider for Denny Hamlin Joe Gibs racing when a team wins a race they're required to run 18 sealed races over the course of a year that means you run fresh engines half the time engines that have been raced before the other half for that reason after you win a race you don't have to tear it down right away you can put a different seal on it and say we'll do it after the next time the 11 of Denny Hamlin one Bristol in the spring opted to not tear the engine down totally acceptable race that engine at Darlington in the spring and then instead of it going to NASCAR went back to their home in Costa Mesa was torn down and rebuilt self-reported they let NASCAR know hey we made a big mistake doesn't matter intention the simple fact is definitely outside the rules for that reason a big penalty Jeff yeah I give Toyota ton of credit for self-reporting it uh it was clearly a mistake there was no competitive Advantage it wasn't like they were cheating it was going to eventually be inspected anyway it was just simply a logistic iCal mistake of nothing else but the penalty is real he was Denny ham and this 11 team they were third in points and they still were battling for the regular season championship and this penalty it's taken them out of it there is no way they're going to win the regular season championship and that is a point hit in the playoffs on top of that 10 playoff points those playoff points we have seen multiple times one point two points a tie between making the a certain round in the playoff off so that is a massive penalty for the 11 team I feel bad for them they had no control over it it's nothing they could have done they did nothing wrong but nonetheless Toyota provides the engines and they have to pay the price and for the fans asking well what happens if they didn't find it NASCAR would have the paperwork would have caught up by the time the playoffs started Toyota found it ahead of time is really the story