Amid a slew of tire issues during the final stage of the Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix, Goodyear issued a reminder to drivers that the teams are provided a recommended tire pressure for a reason. The bluntness of the reminder left Denny Hamlin in stitches.
“I love it. They were not guesses,” Hamlin said, referring to the recommended tire pressures. “That’s right. I love a good troll by Goodyear.”
But the issue was a real one. While a broken rotor for Noah Gragson seemed to hit the track and catch multiple other drivers up in the mess, there were also tire issues that weren’t a result of debris on the track.
Denny Hamlin was asked about it on this week’s episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast. He believes the issue was one that could have been avoided.
“It’s the teams. We’re just pushing it,” Hamlin said. “We certainly know that the more that you lower the air pressure the faster you’re going to be on the long run. And these teams just keep pushing it. So what they do is they get somewhat comfortable in practice, they run the first run of the race, see where things are, and then all the sudden they’re like, ‘All right, well let me take another tenth or two out of the tire.’ And that’s when it … it’s that close.”
That’s pretty much always the case. Teams are looking to min-max their performance, and seeking little edges like tire pressure is just the latest iteration.
Denny Hamlin’s co-hosts noted that he seemed to be relatively immune from the issues on Sunday. Of course, that got Hamlin going for a different reason.
“Is that the announcer jinx?” Hamlin said, shaking his head. “Are we going to blow a tire here this weekend?”
Regardless, Denny Hamlin opened on up ways to game the tire pressure and why NASCAR drivers are looking for an edge there. It’s worth considering moving forward, even as drivers try to prevent issues. Is that actually possible, to control the downside?
“I would say I don’t know. I definitely think that there’s things that you can do as a driver to help the situation, especially early in a run,” Hamlin said. “But sometimes the anvil just drops on your head. Now if you’re a repeat offender, if it’s your team and your driver that keeps blowing tires and your team is screaming, ‘Well we’re not as low…’
“It’s a combination of things too. It’s also, it’s not just the air pressure, it’s how much camber you’re putting with that air pressure. So if you want to drop your air pressure super, super, super low, just reduce the amount of camber that’s in the tire. But then there’s efficiency that you lose actual grip on the short runs. Again, it’s a fine line. You want the camber for the short run, you want the air pressure for the long run. You’re constantly just battling those two out.”