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Denny Hamlin Praises Katherine Legge’s Impressive Cup Series Driving
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- Denny Hamlin Praises Katherine Legge’s Impressive Cup Series Driving
Stan Szeto-Imagn Images Stan Szeto-Imagn Images
Denny Hamlin has been very complimentary of several of his fellow NASCAR drivers this season, including Carson Hocevar , Bubba Wallace, and Connor Zilisch . Following Sunday's race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he is now offering praise for part-time driver Katherine Legge.
During Monday's episode of Actions Detrimental , Hamlin weighed in on Legge's recent performances and how she did in the Brickyard 400.
"Very noteworthy, I mean, I just feel as though. Wow, she is getting a lot out of that car…It can't be stated how impressive she's been. It's not like she's getting five lucky dogs and getting back on the lead lap and squeaking out finishes. She's staying on the lead laps at these race tracks and battling some of our better drivers for teeens finishing positions with a car that is clearly not up to snuff for what she's racing against."
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Katherine Legge stats ( Cup Series ): 56 points, 36.4 average starting position, 25.8 average finishing position in five races
Legge, age 45, made her Cup Series debut at Phoenix Raceway with Live Fast Motorsports in the No. 78 car. Many around the sport believed Phoenix was one of the worst possible tracks for her debut, especially since it was her first time in the Next Gen car and she received minimal practice time. Sure enough, she was well behind the pace and crashed after falling behind the lead lap.
She returned for the road course race at Mexico City, starting 37th and finishing 32nd. A few weeks later, she earned a spot in the Chicago Street Race and turned a 33rd-place starting position into a 19th-place finish. On Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, she set personal bests in finishing position (17th) and points earned (20), finishing ahead of drivers like Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, Kyle Busch, and AJ Allmendinger.
While she has the second-worst average starting position ( 36.4 ) in the Cup Series among drivers who competed in five or more races, Hamlin highlighted that much of this is due to her team and car. Live Fast Motorsports is a very small team, as evidenced by Hamlin saying he had "far, far more" people working on his backup car this past weekend than the total number of Live Fast Motorsports employees. This puts Legge at a significant disadvantage when she shows up to the track.
"Now, in practice, I would have said, whoa, holy cow. Danger, danger…They don't have any testing, probably no data or anything like that. So when they hit the race track for the very first time, who knows where their travels are at. Are they hitting the track? Are they not? They're one of those teams that puts their thumb in the air and thinks, 'I think we'll probably be here this weekend. '"
It's worth noting that Legge is averaging more points per race (11.2) than Cody Ware (6.77) and is close behind Riley Herbst (11.9). Legge also has more top-20 finishes (two in five races) than Cody Ware (one in a full season) and more than J.J. Yeley (zero in four races) and Josh Bilicki (zero in four races). All things considered, she is vastly outperforming what she has been given this season.
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