Denny Hamlin said Monday that NASCAR got it right to keep his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell out of the Cup Series Championship 4 in the playoffs.

Bell was penalized for a safety violation on the final lap of Sunday's Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway for what was determined to be a wall-ride similar to Ross Chastain's "Hail Melon" in 2022 at Martinsville.

Bell needed to pass Bubba Wallace on the final lap to tie William Byron in the playoff standings (with Bell owning the tiebreaker). Bell drove his car deep into turn 3 on the final lap then put his car in the wall and drove it along the wall to the checkered flag to finish 18th. He was assessed a safety violation after a lengthy review by NASCAR race control, giving Byron the final spot.

Hamlin said on his podcast, "Actions Detrimental," he believes that NASCAR was correct in making the ruling against his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate given how the rule was written following Chastain's move in 2022.

"In the end, I think they made the right call," Hamlin said. "I don't like it, but they wanted to avoid us wall-riding on last laps to either gain or defend positions. C-Bell didn't have to do it, there was probably a little bit of panic in the moment, driving it into turn 3 really deep, washes up and gets into the marbles (pieces of rubber off the tires)."

What Denny Hamlin thinks about wall-riding, Hail Melon-type moves

In terms of the safety violation penalty itself, Hamlin said that he was in favor of the rule change in 2022 and that it shouldn't be allowed. Hamlin said it's endangerment for both the fans and drivers.

"Our fans are only sitting 30 or 40 feet from that fence," Hamlin said. "When you go around that racetrack, up against the wall, there's all kinds of debris and metal up there that you don't want to be flinging, and it gets thrown. That's part of it. The NextGen cars don't have the same crush force that the old cars used to, so all that brunt, excess force is going straight to the driver."

Hamlin went on later to say that he doesn't like how the NASCAR rule book is written. He compared NASCAR's vague rules to some other professional sports such as defining a catch in the NFL or having a foot on the line for any sport.

While there are subjective calls, Hamlin said that those penalties are usually clearly defined. In NASCAR's case, he said there is not enough definition.

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"They put such vague wording in their rules," Hamlin said. "That's what allows these instances to come up where they are always in these situations where, how are they going to interpret the rules this week? There aren't enough clean, defined rules in the rule book, so they just leave it open for themselves to do whatever they feel is right. That's the issue we have."

While Joe Gibbs Racing is now shut out of the Championship 4, Hamlin believes that the officials got it right as the rules are written.

"In my opinion, this is what we did not want to have happen on the last lap," Hamlin said.

Follow sports writer Austin Chastain on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @ChastainAJ or reach him via email at achastain@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What Denny Hamlin said about Christopher Bell's NASCAR penalty, Hail Melon move