Patrick, Hamlin have another incident in Duel 2

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Jimmie Johnson won the second Duel 150-mile qualifying race Thursday night at Daytona International Speedway - in case you forgot amid a certain post-race scrum.

The six-time Sprint Cup champion's strong showing was almost completely overshadowed by a disagreement between Danica Patrick and Denny Hamlin. For the second time in as many days, the two got together on track and resulting in Patrick with damage to her No. 10 Chevy.

The pair - who coincidentally are parked right next to each other in the motor coach lot - had a very public, and from Patrick's perspective heated, conversation on pit road after the race.

She felt he wrecked her, again, and let him know. He felt she got loose and tried to tell her as such. Both went out of their way to describe each other has good friends in interviews, but despite that couldn't have been farther apart on how they viewed what happened. Patrick ended up finishing 10th and ensuring a spot in Sunday's field, while Hamlin ended up 18th.

'I was just trying to get - push her (Danica Patrick) - and get close, but I didn't - no contact made her spin,” Hamlin said. 'I just said, ‘You've got to tighten her car up.' I can't predict who has a loose setup or not. I mean, we're superspeedway racing. I treat her as equal as anyone on the racetrack. She deserves her spot here, but you have to be able to run close to somebody on a superspeedway

'I was just close to her and her car got loose and she spun. Thank goodness she got her way in the 500. I didn't want to be responsible for that. I treat her as an equal on the racetrack. I'm not going to say, ‘It's Danica, so I've got to make sure I just leave some extra room.' If you're out here in the Cup Series, you have to be able to handle those situations.”

That's wasn't the point, though, to Patrick.

She didn't confirm or deny there was contact, just that her rear tires went light and her car came around with Hamlin behind. She didn't venture a guess as to why he thought his being so close was different from others, either.

'I have no explanation for that. I am confident other cars get very close and things like that don't happen,” Patrick said. 'Done thousands of miles of this speedway racing now and I haven't found that to be a problem. So I just think that he's wrong. I think that he's too close. I think that he's taking the air and getting it off the spoiler, and he's not squared up either. That's also part of the problem.

'I don't know. Maybe he likes my left rear.”

Patrick's car owner, Tony Stewart, was standing just behind her in the post-race conversation and unsurprisingly offered a supporting view of his driver. Hamlin handled the situation calmly, and tried explaining himself to everyone.

He said the incidents the last two days will change how he races Patrick on Sunday, if only to give her more room and avoid what's happened.

'They know I've got no intentions with those guys. That whole team - I've got a great relationship with them,” Hamlin said of the Stewart-Haas Racing bunch. 'Trust me, I'm sitting there shaking my head when she spun out, but there's nothing you can do. You can't treat anyone - you can't allow more room because of somebody different when you're trying to go forward. I'm trying to help her efforts and I just - I got too close to her I guess.”

The wreck briefly put Patrick in danger of missing the Daytona 500 altogether. Her time trial on Sunday wasn't good enough to guarantee a spot, and with several drivers who had poor times Sunday racing their way in through the first Duel, a top-15 finish was almost necessary in Duel 2.

She recovered with a banged up racecar, but not without some tense final laps. The job was no small feat, considering her team decided after the race to scrap the car and go with a backup - the car she raced in the Sprint Unlimited last Saturday, in fact - for Sunday's race with a big push from teammate Kurt Busch.

'Holy crap, it felt dire. This whole scenario is crazy that the series has put us in,” Patrick said. 'I knew that I needed to just finish in the top 15. There was a million scenarios of like who does what in any race, who uses a provisional and who doesn't. You can just drive yourself crazy thinking about all of them.

'At the end when they told me I need four spots or you need to pass these two cars or you're 18th right now, I was like, OK, do I have to be desperate basically? Do I have to pass these cars? Nobody answered me. I just said, Screw it, I'm going to be desperate. Luckily it shouldn't go unsaid, Kurt was there for me. Without Kurt, I wouldn't have finished where I did.”

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