Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
CHARLOTTE (September 3, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media via videoconference during the NASCAR Playoffs Media Day:
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How worried are you about getting COVID-19 in the Playoffs and are you doing anything extra to be cautious?
“I’m not doing anything additional. Whatever I’ve been doing has been successful. Obviously, you don’t want to go anywhere new I would say. I think that we’ve got a good process. I monitor kind of my health and what not through some stuff that I have. I’m not really too concerned about it, but obviously anything can happen so you never know.”
What has been the difference for you in the last two years where you’ve been able to put full seasons together?
“Just a lot of stuff has changed on and off the race track. I think I’ve changed a little bit as a driver. I’ve just adapted quite a bit as well. It’s tough to say what has automatically just flipped the switch and made the results what they’ve been over the last two years or less than two years. Certainly, there’s a process we’ve put in to preparing for each week that is working for us, it’s working for me. Me and Chris (Gabehart, crew chief) have just kind of got a thing going that’s working for us. I don’t really know what it is, I just know that we’re performing at tracks that haven’t necessarily and statistically been strong suits for us. Each and every week we’re contending for the race win. I don’t know why that is, but it’s just happening.”
Are you a different person now than you were two years ago?
“I would say so. I know that I am. From the start of 2019 – January 2019 to now, no question. There’s a lot of changes that have happened on and off the track that have attributed I’m sure.”
Who is the dark horse team that could make a run in the Playoffs?
“I don’t know if it’s a dark horse, but probably (Ryan) Blaney if I had to guess. I think he shows the most speed when he’s on speed, he’s really on. I think of like Texas where I thought he was significantly faster than just everybody. I think we were the next best car, but he’s just a guy that I look at as, he has the ability to make it through each round and perhaps, I don’t know how many final four brackets he might be in. I would say, if I had to guess, everyone that fills one out, he’s probably in five percent of them maybe. Legitimately, I think he has a much better shot at that of making it through.”
How unpredictable is the second round of the Playoffs with Talladega and the Roval?
“It’s a lot. What I look at when it comes to the second round is I want to have a really good race at Las Vegas and hopefully if I can build upon my point lead over the cut line after Vegas then I’ll race Talladega just as I normally would. If not, maybe I change the way that I do things. I think every driver’s strategy will be a little bit different given their particular situation. I think you have to change your strategy based off of where you are. A lot of people say that you should never change anything, well you’re not going to be successful if you never change anything. You have to be able to adapt to your situation and plan and strategize accordingly. Those are very volatile races. It’s ones you feel like you can go win either one, but you can also go out there and run 20th in both of them or worse. You have to make sure you put yourself in a good position before you get there.”
What are you curious to see with your team in the Playoffs or in general?
“I want to see how we do in the first round. I want to see, these are historically really good tracks for me. I think that I want to see our momentum continue. We’re not going to race any differently, especially in the first round. I think that I’m going to be very aggressive. I’m going to try to get more wins. I just want to see who shows up from the competition standpoint that maybe people have slept on or maybe hasn’t shown everything they had until the Playoffs started. I think there will be one or two guys that find a way to run significantly better than what they have shown during the regular season and we’re going to have to step up our game accordingly to that.”
How long did it take you to get over Homestead last year and did you talk with Chris Gabehart about it?
“We didn’t even talk about Homestead. I think it was probably right around Daytona time this year when we were just talking and spit-balling about what we were doing this year coming up and our strategy for the first part of the season, going through all the analytics from the past season. He’s like, ‘are you not going to ask me why I put that big piece of tape on your car?’ I was like, no, I assumed you had a reason for it so I figured it is what it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. All I can do is go out there and drive as fast as I can every single lap and tell you the information that you need to make the car go faster. I did what I felt like all I could do to win the championship and it didn’t work out. I know he’s (Chris Gabehart, crew chief) an aggressive guy that goes for it. I knew that there was some sort of reason why he did what he did and I wasn’t going to fault him for it. It didn’t take me any time to get over it. We had a great year. We came off a winless season before to a six-win season that year. We won the must-win situation at Phoenix that we needed to get to the final four. It didn’t take me any time to get over it and especially, it showed that we won the Daytona 500 again this year. We continued our momentum regardless of what happened in the final race.”
Have you asked Chris Gabehart to scale back his aggressiveness or stay just as he is with strategy calls?
“I want him to stay that way. He’s very aggressive with strategy and things like that. I do not want him to play it safe unless he sees an opportunity where if we play it safe here, we’re guaranteeing some sort of result that we need. That would be the only time that I would like to see him scale back, but it would be tough for that to actually happen.”
Were you concerned that NASCAR would get to this point in the season when the sport returned in May?
“I had concerns, but I was also pretty confident that we were going to get back to racing probably quicker than other sports simply because we were not a contact sport when it comes to player-to-player. We have an advantage over other sports in that aspect. Finding a way to make it safe, finding protocols to put in place to keep us separated from each other certainly has played a factor and us being able to go back and be one of the first sports back and now catching up our schedule to regular schedule program now that we start our Playoffs. NASCAR leadership has done a really good job of doing that and putting everything in place for us to get to this point. Now we just need to assume this season is no different other than the lack of practice that we’re going to have through the Playoffs and we’ll just go from there.”
What is the respect level like between yourself and Kevin Harvick? Do you expect that to change during the Playoffs?
“I don’t think so simply because the championship is won in the final race where I think if this was a 10-week playoff where the champion was crowned after his 10-race performance then yeah, maybe there’s an opportunity there for head games or whatever it might be. Even though I think we’re pretty much old and too old for that. We have a lot of respect between each other, our teams do as well and we’re going to battle each other at some point in these Playoffs, but we know that we both need to make it to the final four. I think the right scenario is that we’re at Phoenix together battling it out for the championship. There’s a lot of work that has to get done to get us to that point, but that’s probably the right thing when you think about how a championship should be crowned. Our format is a little different and you have to go out and win that final one. I don’t think that we will race each other any different than what we have all season long. The only time it would ever change would be in that final race.”
What has it been like to be at-track without fans?
“It’s different. It’s certainly not ideal, but we’re still able to put out a product on Sundays that people enjoy and it’s entertaining. Our sport probably looks as good or as it did before. It shows well on TV even though there’s no one in the stands. The on-track action is no different. I certainly, it stinks that they’re not there because I wish that the fans could enjoy that Playoff atmosphere, but also understand that we have to keep everyone safe. On the race tracks that we do have fans, you can feel that energy, you really can. Even though it’s just a few thousand people, that little bit does matter and you can certainly feel the intensity just a little bit different before and after a race. We’re hoping they get back to a race track soon. We certainly enjoy having them around. That’s why we’re out here doing this is to entertain them. It sucks we’re only doing it on TV right now, but pretty soon hopefully we’ll have them back in full capacity.”
Why is Richmond one of your favorite tracks?
“It’s one of my favorite tracks for one good reason, it’s 30 minutes from where I grew up and we used to go out there and watch the races. Every time NASCAR would come into town, me and my family went out to Richmond and watched them. Even though it’s three-quarters of a mile in length, it really drives like a lot of the short tracks that I grew up racing on where you have to have your car handling a certain way, you have to turn good and you have to have forward bite off the corner. It drives like a true short track so that’s what I enjoy about it the most. That and the success we’ve had there, those three things makes me excited every time I roll through the tunnel there.”
Are you looking forward to seeing Washington play football on week one?
“It’s awesome that football is going to be able to happen, it looks like, crossing our fingers as things change day to day. I’m excited for it. Obviously they made a lot of changes within that organization itself even beyond the players. Excited to see where it goes this year. I always temper my expectations. I like to have low expectations and then beat it. I don’t like to oversell anything. Let’s be patient and see how this thing turns out.”
What makes Phoenix such a unique race track?
“I like Phoenix Raceway in particular because they’ve really invested in that race track for the fans and they’re experience. A lot of money has been put into there from the fan zone inside the race track around victory lane to the midway there as well. The fans have always come out to that race track in full force even when it’s just a regular season race. It’s very deserving to be the championship race. I always look forward to going to that race track and like Richmond, it drives very much like a short track. You have to bring you’re A-game if you’re going to win there.”
Do you think Kyle Busch could get hot and make a run for the championship in the Playoffs?
“It’s possible. It’s absolutely possible. I think we even saw it last year. He (Kyle Busch) was the least championship favorite going into the final four and he won the race and he’s champion. Anything can happen in our sport, especially the way this format plays out. You do everything you can for 35 weeks, you put yourself in good position and then you just hope and pray that things work out for you in that final race so you can be a champion. I know he’s got race-winning equipment. Yeah, are they off-key right now? Yes, a little bit, but certainly if anyone has a chance to get hot, it could be Kyle and his team. They know what they’re doing, they’ve got championship pedigree and they know how to get through these 10 weeks. They’ve shown that many, many times by making it to the final four even when they haven’t been at their best. Certainly, it’s a team that will be a threat.”
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