Denny Hamlin won the 2020 Daytona 500, but Ryan Newman has been the talk of the racing world as he was involved in a fiery crash that sent him to the hospital. The good news is Newman was able to walk out of the hospital on Wednesday, but on Monday night, fans took aim at Hamlin for celebrating his win. On Tuesday morning, Hamlin was on LIVE with Kelly and Ryan and he talked about what he saw during the final lap.
“I didn’t know really anything until we got to victory lane,” Newman began as they were watching the clip. “I’m third right here, so I’m pushing the yellow car, I see them starting to get together and I get the last lunge at the start/finish line.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Hamlin went on to say he didn’t now that Newman slammed into the wall and get hit again by another car.
“I saw him come across me obviously but wrecks are so common at the end of these races anyway that you don’t think anything about it,” he said. “It’s been so long since any serious injury. We just went about our business and then got informed at victory lane that it was something serious.”
After the race, Hamlin and his crew were seen celebrating at victory lane, but he told reporters he wasn’t aware of the crash.
“Obviously I saw him cross the race track,” Hamlin said. “I didn’t see the contact that the other car had when he was in the air. That’s kind of a worse case scenario you can possibly have.”
Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs Racing and owner Joe Gibbs apologized for his team celebrating the win amid Newman’s crash.
“So, I say to everybody out there, some people may have saw us and said, ‘those guys are celebrating when there’s a serious issue going on.’ So I apologize to everybody, but we really didn’t know,” Gibbs said. “We got in the winner’s circle, and then that’s when people told us. I wanted to explain that to everyone. It makes it so hard. Such a close-knit community, you know everybody.”
No worries now because Newman is home from the hospital, and it looks like he will make a full recovery.
