The NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday was one to forget for Spire Motorsports, especially Carson Hocevar. While recapping the race, Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin shared his thoughts on Spire's performance and took a snipe at them amidst the ongoing lawsuit between the two teams.

The $8 million lawsuit first came to light in February earlier this year, when JGR accused former employee Chris Gabehart of a "brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information and use it for the benefit of a direct competitor in NASCAR," which is Spire Motorsports.

But because Chicagoland was returning to the calendar after seven years, Hamlin joked that Spire did not have any past JGR setups to copy and hence performed poorly.

"All of the Spire cars were bad. Hmm... (smirks) No past setups, huh?" he said on his "Actions Detrimental" podcast.

On Sunday at the 1.5-mile oval, all three Spire cars struggled. Daniel Suarez finished 14th, Carson Hocevar finished 22nd, and Michael McDowell finished 29th. Meanwhile, JGR locked out all podium places with Chase Briscoe winning, Christopher Bell in second, and Hamlin in third.

In the ongoing lawsuit, JGR alleged that Spire benefited from confidential competitive data, claiming it contributed to the team's improved performance this season.

For Hocevar, Chicagoland was his 100th NASCAR Cup Series race start. However, his race was cut short after an incident on track with Zane Smith on Lap 32, adding to the team's forgettable weekend. 

Denny Hamlin weighs in on the Smith-Hocevar incident

Both Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith made their 100th start in the Cup Series on Sunday. However, it did not pan out the way they would have wanted to.

The two drivers collided on Lap 32 after Smith ran Hocevar high on the track, causing them to slide sideways and hit the wall. What exactly prompted that remains unclear. 

While talking about the incident, Denny Hamlin gave his opinion about it. In the aforementioned podcast, he said, 

"I find it very pointed, very deliberate that, like, if you look at it, there was an in-car camera of somebody running on the high side and those two running low, and you could see Zane drive in there very deep to get to his back bumper.

"Now, I don't know what prompted it, but you would think that there was something that clearly upset Zane before that moment. You don't want to wreck yourself, for certain. So that was certainly unfortunate."

After the wreck, Carson Hocevar finished the race down in 22nd while Zane Smith finished in 28th.  This incident turned what was meant to be a milestone weekend into a weekend to forget for both drivers.

Follow the Daytona Racing Digest for more NASCAR updates!

Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak