As of Tuesday, no penalties have been delivered by NASCAR following the most recent Cup Series race. If a penalty report is released, that would likely come on Wednesday (AEST).
The contest featured two similar incidents – the first involved Front Row Motorsports’ Zane Smith, who rear-ended Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar and caused both to spin.
The second incident, which has been heavily scrutinised on social media, saw van Gisbergen hit the rear of Hill and spin the Richard Childress Racing driver out of the race.
Whether the incident was intentional has been a key point of contention.
Data presented by NASCAR broadcaster TNT Sports suggested that the Trackhouse Racing driver had driven into the corner deeper than previous laps.
That data did not show whether van Gisbergen was running the high line or the low line. In five of the six preceding laps, van Gisbergen had run the high line.
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Footage of the incident showed van Gisbergen commit to the low line before Hill followed him down, at which point they made contact.
In the immediate aftermath of the clash van Gisbergen said his car was suffering from understeer.
Was SVG’s collision with Austin Hill intentional? 👀@Dalejr and @JamieMcMurray took a look into it 🔎 pic.twitter.com/dUQvT9e1g4
— TNT Sports U.S. (@TNTSportsUS) July 6, 2026
He said post-race that he did not intend to wreck Hill and offered the Richard Childress Racing crew an apology.
“SVG’s looked far more aggressive,” Hamlin said, comparing the two Chicagoland incidents, on his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“When he thought Ryan Preece committed murder to Ty Gibbs — what’s above murder? Premeditated. That’s a harder sentence. They’re one in the same, but SVG’s looked bad.
“I said last week the data shows intent. The data would argue SVG went into the corner with no intent to slow up.
“It’s not like there was a hole there. If you’re SVG, you’re putting NASCAR in a really, really tough position given what has happened in these situations before.
“All we know is that data typically doesn’t lie. It usually tells intent.
“You use your eyeballs to look at the replay then you use the data to look at intent and you would draw pretty much the same conclusion no matter what.”
Earlier this year, Ryan Preece was given a $50,000 USD ($69,000 AUD) fine for intentionally wrecking Ty Gibbs.
NASCAR took into consideration comments Preece made before the incident to determine there was intent.
Van Gisbergen has not made any comments to date that would suggest he had payback plans, save for calling Hill a “spud” in a Trackhouse Racing video.
There have been arguments made that van Gisbergen intentionally hit Hill in retaliation for incidents at Pocono and San Diego.
Hamlin said the Chicagoland incidents raised questions about driver conduct.
He believes NASCAR has trended away from letting drivers settle their differences on track and has all but stopped off-track skirmishes.
“I’m torn on these wrecks. Because, do I think it’s cool that someone just goes and wipes someone out? No, but I’m also a very firm fan of self-policing, and I think that that has to be a thing in sport,” Hamlin explained.
“If you can’t handle it off the race track – which I’m not really in favour of that because there are other people – you’ve got to let people self-police on the race track, and this is how you self-police.
“You let someone know you fuck with me and you’re gonna get it. You’re gonna get it. So just think about that before you fuck with me or you hook me or your wreck me or you run into me.
“This is what NASCAR racing has been for quite some time is this self-policing sport and it just got into a weird spot over the last five to six to seven years where we started talking about these are deliberate wrecks, these are intentional wrecks and we have to penalise that.
“Then there’s the other half of me, the other birdy that is like, ‘Yeah that’s an intentional wreck, you shouldn’t be able to do that. That’s wrong’. I don’t know which one I like, I don’t know if I like ‘the self-policing birdie’ or the ‘that’s an intentional wreck’.”
If one driver does get penalised, it’s likely to be Hill for hitting van Gisbergen under yellow flag conditions. NASCAR has typically taken a dim view of incidents under caution.
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