Austin Hill ended his playoff run with a 21-point deficit at the Charlotte Roval. The Richard Childress Racing driver blamed himself for the exit and pointed to his Indianapolis penalty.
Hill had a rather poor playoff this season. He had two mid-pack finishes at Bristol and Gateway, but recovered to a strong third-place finish at Kansas. His race at the Roval was an unfortunate one, as he faced engine issues by lap 50 and dropped to 28th on the running order.
The result eliminated him from the playoffs by exactly 21 points, the same number that was docked from his regular-season tally after his shunt with Aric Almirola at Indianapolis. In addition, the No.21 driver received a one-race suspension and wasn’t allowed to earn any more bonus points through the regular season.
In a post-race interview at Roval, Hill addressed the playoff exit and said,
“I mean, you win as the team and you lose as the team. I’m not pointing the finger at anyone, if anyone’s that followed us, me for losing the 21 bonus points in the regular season. So we’re just going to go on to Las Vegas, Talladega, Martinsville, try to win some of those, steal the show a little bit, then go to Phoenix and do the same thing.”
Austin Hill initially defended his move at Indianapolis and framed it as a racing incident, while Almirola called it one of his ‘biggest hits’ in his NASCAR career.
Looking ahead, Hill is slated for a Cup start in the playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway. He’ll run a third car fielded by RCR. He also competed in the regular season finale at Daytona and the playoff race at Bristol, but had backmarker finishes in both outings.
“It always hurts when you’re the first”: Denny Hamlin on Austin Hill’s penalty
Denny Hamlin shared a candid take on Austin Hill’s 21-point penalty. During his Iowa weekend, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver spoke to Frontstretch and explained how NASCAR made an example out of Hill.
“Well, it always hurts when you’re the first and you know the idea I think behind the penalty is to deter others from, you know, doing something similar to that in the same scenario. So, usually this is how it works where it just takes one rough driving penalty to, you know, get the field’s attention and certainly nobody wants to have the the penalty that the 21 had,” he said. [1:08 onwards]
The Indianapolis incident wasn’t Austin Hill’s first infraction this year. He had pushed JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier en route to his victory at Martinsville Speedway. In the same race, he also took out his own teammate, Jesse Love, when he bumped Christian Eckes and caused a chain reaction.
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Edited by Vignesh Kanna
