Hamlin crowns SVG ‘greatest f***king athlete’
The win set tongues wagging with Chase Elliott suggesting that van Gisbergen will return down under and “tell all of his friends how bad we are”.
Hamlin, who started the race from pole, debated that very matter on the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver began siding with the idea that van Gisbergen’s extensive street circuit experience spared the blushes of the Cup Series regulars.
“I was walking out with him after qualifying and he was saying, ‘congrats, nice lap’ and what not,” said Hamlin.
“And I said to him, ‘big fan’. I’ve never talked to him before, I’ve probably seen, I don’t know, 50 total laps of Supercars racing. But most of the highlights are around this guy and how good he is.
“An interesting question that got posed to me – do you think, after the Chase Elliott comments and Kyle Larson comments about how he’s going to go back and tell everyone how bad we suck… does it taint it for you guys, that a guy came in here one time and won?
“If it was road course or an oval, then I would be a little embarrassed.
“I’m trying to create an analogy. Because what people could think is that we just had somebody come play in the NBA and beat LeBron James and whatever. And what I say is, no, their ball is square. It’s a square hoop. Everything is different.
“We came to his world more than he came to our world. We were racing in his environment more than he was racing in our environment. Street racing is a lot of what they do, racing around these barriers.
“If it was on an oval, this would have been the single most incredible accomplishment. I mean, it was. Sixty seven years since someone won in their first start. What he did was unbelievable, it really was. I was in awe of this guy’s talent.
“And if you looked at where he was fast on the race track, it was where all of the walls were. The tighter the track was, the faster he was versus the field.
“But again, it wasn’t road courses we had all run before. We had never run it before, and he had never run it before.”
However Hamlin then began to consider that van Gisbergen usually races a right-hand drive car, which gave him a fresh appreciation of what he had achieved.
“I’m thinking about this on the fly, and the counter point on the other side of my shoulder is… they said he was shifting with the opposite hand,” Hamlin added.
“That, to me, blows my mind. I guess I could do it, but I probably wouldn’t be very efficient shifting with the other hand.
“We knew he was really good, but this is blowing sky mind as we talk about it. You know what? Crown him. Greatest fucking athlete in the history of sports.
“I mean, he went from one side of the car to the other. I did it when I went to Japan for Toyota and I ran out in a GT3 car. It took me forever to get comfortable driving from the other side of the car.
“Holy cow. Everywhere you turn it’s pretty amazing, what he did.”
