Following two consecutive weeks of intense, race-altering drama between Corey Day and William Sawalich, Hendrick Motorsports team president Jeff Andrews confirmed that team leadership sat down with their 20-year-old prodigy to reset expectations ahead of the Bristol Motor Speedway race.
The sit-down follows a boiling feud that spilled over at World Wide Technology Raceway. After a heated exchange at Darlington in which Day sent Sawalich into the wall, Sawalich retaliated at high speed down the backstretch at Gateway, turning left into Day’s No. 17 Chevrolet. The resulting crash triggered a hard impact into the inside SAFER barrier, dropping Day to a 33rd-place DNF and severely damaging his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase standings.
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Speaking on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Andrews revealed that Corey Day took immediate responsibility for his role in initiating the contact during his sit-down with team executives and crew chief Adam Wall.
“We did have that conversation. We talked with Corey. You know, this week and right away, you know, he owned it,” Andrews stated.
“He said, ‘Look, I got into him there in the middle of one and two.’ I think there were some situations that, you know, started unfolding off of Turn 2 where Corey would have liked to have got off of the 18 and just wasn’t able to do so. But we own the fact of how that started and to your point, we’ve got to move past this and move on, right? And we’ve got to go race for a championship.”
Acknowledging the pressure resting on the young driver’s shoulders during his debut postseason campaign, Andrews emphasized that Hendrick Motorsports remains 100% committed to supporting Corey Day as he navigates the high-stakes reality of modern Chase racing.
Jeff Andrews makes his stance clear after NASCAR lets William Sawalich off the hook after Corey Day wreck
Despite rival driver Justin Allgaier and multiple garage figures calling the Gateway wreck deliberate retaliation, NASCAR announced earlier this week that no formal penalties would be handed down to William Sawalich or Joe Gibbs Racing.
Moreover, Andrews confirmed Hendrick Motorsports has zero intention of lobbying for sanctioning body intervention, opting instead to redirect all energy toward Bristol.
In the aforementioned conversation, Andrews added:
“There’s certainly a lot of opinions on if the reaction was appropriate or not. And we’re not going to get in the middle of that battle,” Andrews concluded. “That’s NASCAR’s decision and how they want to handle dealing with that. But, you know, for ourselves and Corey and that team and Hendrick Motorsports are moving on from what happened there in St. Louis. And we’re focused on Bristol right now.”
Jeff Andrews’ public handling of Corey Day’s Gateway ordeal is a textbook example of how Hendrick Motorsports protects and matures its young pipeline talent. Rather than fueling a media war with Joe Gibbs Racing over William Sawalich’s retaliation, HMS chose to address the root cause internally.
Edited by Sashwat Deo