Elliott and Hamlin were battling for position just 15 laps shy of halfway when Hamlin pushed up the track, causing Elliott to hit the outside wall.
Elliott then appeared to turn down the track into the right-rear fender of Hamlin's car, sending him head-on into the outside wall in a violent crash that eliminated both drivers from the race.
Although Elliott said it wasn't intentional, Hamlin posted SMT data on social media that seemed to suggest otherwise. Hamlin called it a "tantrum" and said that Elliott "shouldn't be racing next week."
NASCAR took action less than 24 hours later and on Tuesday, suspended Elliott for one race. He will miss this weekend's event at Gateway.
In an interview Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NASCAR Senior VP of Competition, Elton Sawyer said: "Drivers need to understand they have to handle that a completely different way."
Hamlin will feel vindicated by the decision, having called Elliott out on TV, social media and on his podcast.
“There’s no explanation that he could possibly give, which he didn’t, for hanging a left,” said Hamlin on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “He obviously didn’t want to admit, he did ‘ahh I can’t hear you, sorry’ [in his TV interview] and ‘yeah, my car, just couldn’t drive it’.
“Bull**** – the f****** wheels were dead straight. Even after we crashed and destroyed our s***, he goes down the back straightaway and look at both tyres. Front tyres are pointing the correct direction.
“And I pointed out in the data that I tweeted that once he got in the wall there was nothing wrong with his car. You can tell by data whether you’ve got toe-link damage or not. So you can tell that, basically, if your line is skewed one direction or another where you had to turn it left, turn it right.
“He threw a hissy fit and he just hung a left on us on the most dangerous part of the racetrack that you possibly could.”
Source: Autosport