Austin Hill Under Fire for Late Race Incident with Aric Almirola at Indianapolis

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – It could be a rocky road ahead for Austin Hill after a late race run-in with Aric Almirola in the late stages of Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

With nine laps to go in the race, Almirola and Hill were running just outside the top-five when Almirola started working on Hill to try and get around him when Hill broke loose and tagged the outside wall in Turn 3.

After his contact with the wall, Hill turned left back down the track and contacted the right rear of Almirola’s car, sending him head on into the wall, making heavy contact in a section just prior to the SAFER barrier starting.

Almirola was fortunately able to climb from his car under his own power, but his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was all but destroyed in the incident.

The yellow flag is out at @IMS following this incident involving multiple cars.@Aric_Almirola exited the No. 19 under his own power. pic.twitter.com/tOaYGsLFJw

— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) July 26, 2025

After being checked and released from the Infield Care Center, Almirola started with a diplomatic answer regarding the incident before pointing the finger squarely at Hill for how things had just played out for him on track.

“Oh, it was definitely intentional,” said Almirola. “He blocked me three times. I finally got him loose in (Turn) 3. He had damage on the nose, so he was really slow in the corners and it was time to go. I mean, we were coming to 10 laps to go or nine laps to go. The leaders were starting to put a gap on us, so it’s time to go.

“I got him loose and yeah, he just turned left and hooked me in the right rear. Honestly, one of the biggest hits in my entire NASCAR career. Very reminiscent of the hit I took when I broke my back, so glad I’m OL. Thankful to everybody back at the shop and Joe Gibbs Racing for building amazing race cars and making them safe.”

Almirola went on to call out Hill further for being hypocritical about his pledge to turn over a new leaf and race cleaner back in Martinsville only for what happened Saturday to transpire.

“Disappointed. Felt like we had a shot to win. I have so much fun. Every time we run these races we have great race cars and I love doing it. It’s just unfortunate that guys like that, especially that guy…

“He stood up in front of a meeting in Martinsville and said he was going to be a role model for all the young kids to look up to and racing etiquette. And I think that’s kind of laughable after that one.”

Hill would be parked five laps by NASCAR for the incident, to which he did not respond positively to over his radio during the red flag.

“Oh, they can go f*** themselves,” Hill said in his tirade over the reckless driving penalty.

“F*** NASCAR. That is f****** bull****. I’m f****** sideways. I go to correct it back to the left and it gets locked to the left and I f****** run into the 19 (Almirola).”

After the race, Hill declined to speak with the media about the incident, but could face further penalty from the sanctioning body in the week ahead.

Recently, NASCAR has not taken kindly to drivers right-rear hooking each other, with two recent examples being Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace at Las Vegas in 2022, which saw Wallace handed a one race suspension.

Another being Austin Cindric and Ty Dillon at Circuit of the Americas earlier this year, in which Cindric was fined $50,000 and docked 50 points.

Which route NASCAR will elect to take remains unclear, but will be reviewed with any penalties announced mid-week as is standard procedure.