Chastain apologetic for "terrible driving" in NASCAR Gateway race

The Trackhouse Racing driver, who has won two Cup Series races this year at the Circuit of the Americas and Talladega, began the Gateway race with an uneventful run to fifth in Stage 1.

But shortly after action resumed following the break between stages, Chastain ran deep into Turn 1 and punted Denny Hamlin into the wall, resulting in a lengthy pit delay for the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver.

Upon returning to the track, Hamlin then squeezed Chastain hard down to the apron with NASCAR officials informing Hamlin’s team that the driver had “made his point.”

Later in the same stage, Chastain tried squeezing between two cars in a three-wide move on lap 102 but ended up hitting Chase Elliott and sent the 2020 Cup champion spinning.

On the restart following that caution, both Elliott and Hamlin hit Chastain’s car, causing him to lose several positions.

Although he eventually rallied to finish eighth in a race won by Joey Logano, Chastain accepts that the issues with both drivers are likely far from over.

“It was just terrible driving,” said Chastain, who will be joined in the Trackhouse team by 2008 Formula 1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen for the Watkins Glen round next month as part of the team's 'Project91' initiative.

“It’s one thing to do it once, but I just kept driving into guys. At this level, I’m supposed to be better than that.

“I have all these people believing in me with Justin Marks and PitBull putting me in this car. They deserve better.”

Ross Chastain, TrackHouse Racing, Coca-Cola Chevrolet Camaro

Photo by: Gavin Baker / NKP / Motorsport Images

Chastain said he would seek out both Hamlin and Elliott and attempt to talk to both of them, though isn’t sure it will do much good.

“I owe half of the field an apology,” he said.

“Words aren’t going to fix it, so I’ll have to pay for it on the track. I almost did today and I deserve everything that they do.

“I can’t believe I continued to make those same mistakes; overdrive the corners and drive into guys.

“I had time under caution to get reset; and we’d go green and I would drive into somebody. Terrible.”

Asked how he would deal with Chastain moving forward, Hamlin said: “It’s good that he takes responsibility but ultimately it ruined our day.

“We were kind of racing hard there for a while on the inside and he tried to keep sliding up in front of us and he wasn’t able to.

“It didn’t take long after he tucked in behind us that he wrecked us. The unfortunate part is he didn’t get too shy after that because I think he hit (Elliott) after that one.

“We’ve all learned the hard way and we’ve all had it come back around on us. It’ll be no different.”