This afternoon, NASCAR issued Denny Hamlin and his team a penalty that will cost them 75 points and 10 playoff points. It’s a huge penalty that will impact the regular season championship and the playoffs.

Denny Hamlin and his team reused a winning engine without having it inspected by NASCAR. The fault ultimately lies with Toyota TRD, the engine supplier to Joe Gibbs Racing.

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That doesn’t matter though. JGR used the engine and that means they automatically get an L2 penalty. In addition to the 75 driver and owner points and the 10 playoff points, crew chief Chris Gabehart will be fined $100,000.

As Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports points out, this is a serious penalty and one that will cost Denny Hamlin and his team a lot.

This penalty will put Hamlin out of contention for the regular season championship. He was 28 points behind leader Tyler Reddick. Now Hamlin drops from third to sixth place in the overall standings, 786 to 711.

Denny Hamlin will also drop from third to sixth in playoff points, falling from 21 to 11 and now sitting between his Team Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric in playoff points.

The problem originated with TRD, who reported the violation themselves. Joe Gibbs Racing did not make the mistake, but is being penalized. NASCAR has a very clear rule on this.

This is a huge blow to his league title hopes. If he had come back to win the regular season championship, he would have earned 15 bonus playoff points. Instead, he dropped 25 points and lost 10.

Denny Hamlin penalized by NASCAR

After the penalty was announced, Toyota Racing Development released a statement on the matter. As the engine supplier, the responsibility ultimately lies with them. David Wilson, President of TRD, spoke on behalf of the organization.

“As the engine builder for our NASCAR Cup Series partner teams, TRD is solely responsible for the handling and disposal of all of our engines before and after the race,” Wilson said. “Despite procedures in place, Denny’s winning Bristol engine was mistakenly shipped back to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt instead of being disassembled and inspected according to NASCAR rules. Even though we know with absolute certainty that the engine was legal and would have passed inspection, we put NASCAR in an impossible position by not giving them the opportunity to properly inspect our engine.

“We have reviewed our processes and implemented several additional steps to ensure this never happens again. TRD takes full responsibility for this serious error and we apologize to Denny, Chris (Gabehart), Coach (Joe) Gibbs and the entire JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) organization, NASCAR and our fans.”

TRD makes a mistake, Denny Hamlin pays for it. This season is not lost, but Hamlin has a tougher job now. When the playoffs start, he will be more vulnerable than before. That’s an uncomfortable situation for any driver.