Denny Hamlin adjusts his staunch stance on Trackhouse after Ross Chastain’s shocking display at Charlotte

Denny Hamlin let his feelings be known about Ross Chastain and Trackhouse Racing's unforeseen rise to the top. Hamlin's comments came after Chastain won the 2025 Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and shocked the world.

On Sunday, Chastain started his race from the back of the pack after a crash in qualifying the previous day. Since he could not participate in the session, NASCAR sent him to the back of the field, to 40th place. Starting from that place, nobody saw what was coming.

The Trackhouse Racing driver improved to 21st place by the end of Stage 1 and further raced up to seventh place in Stage 2. Chastain kept his momentum going in Stage 3 and registered fifth place. In the end, the #1 driver came home on top against all odds and held off William Byron in a thrilling finish.

"He [Ross Chastain] is consistently the top guy over there," Hamlin said in the recent Actions Detrimental podcast on YouTube. "You know but we need to give uh credit to Trackhouse this weekend. We've been pretty hard on them in their lack of speed lack of everything to start the year but they absolutely showed up. They were the one was the fastest car in practice by a chunk." (36:58-37:24)

"I think that they proved by driving towards the front over the course of and you heard Ross say, "just it took the entire race to get there". Him starting dead last, it had the real speed that the 88 showed it, the 99 not so much Um but is it by having stance that the one I mean I was looking at the rankings and I think Chastain's been like the 17th fastest car um on intermediate this year I mean just not this was out of the blue This was absolutely out of the blue," he further added. (37:42-38:18)

Chastain's incredible achievement goes far beyond any normal feat as he rewrote the 56-year-old story of starting from dead last to winning the race, that too in a backup car. With this, he became the first driver to win a race from last position since Bobby Allison in 1969.

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Ross Chastain shared his thoughts after claiming a surprising victory

Following the conclusion of the 2025 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, Ross Chastain let his feelings be known about his surprising victory and dedicated his win to those who "paid the ultimate sacrifice." Here's what the #1 Trackhouse Racing driver told Amazon Prime Video in the post-race interview:

NASCAR Cup Series driver Ross Chastain (1) celebrates his win during the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway - Source: Imagn

"Holy cow, we just won the World 600 ... It's so cool to do it on Memorial Day. Think about what this weekend means ... the ones who didn't get to come home, they paid the ultimate sacrifice, we're racing for them."

Thanks to Chastain's sixth NASCAR Cup Series victory, Chastain qualified for the 2025 NASCAR playoffs and helped his team, Trackhouse Racing, qualify in the owners' category. This was Chastain's first win of the season, so was Trackhouse Racing's.