Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
LONG POND, Pa. (July 13, 2024) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday prior to this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway.
DENNY HAMLIN No. 11 Mavis Tire Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Is 23XI Racing going to appeal Bubba Wallace’s fine from Chicago?
“Yeah, I think you can look at them (penalties) similarly if you want to. You can look at them differently if you want to. All in all, it’s a judgment call and that’s the explanation that they gave the team. It’s a judgment call. More than likely, we’ve seen these things happen in other sports where the camera’s on you live, not a cutaway where you’d say ‘oh, by the way, this happened after the checkered,’ I think it being live and everyone seeing it, probably caused a little more of a social media uproar which then they responded to that. I think from the team’s standpoint, I don’t believe there will be any appeals. It’s a learning moment you try not to repeat.”
Are you okay with what Bubba did?
“I didn’t weigh in on it with him. I think those things happen on a regular basis each and every week. Again, it’s based on circumstances of it being on live TV, making it different.”
Do you feel like this will be a weekend to turn things around for your team?
“It’s been some wonky races. I mean there’s been rain, which really changed New Hampshire quite a bit going from what we think is a race-winning car and feeling like we were going to win to not. And obviously Chicago, it turned out the way it did. We were really good in the dry pace. I felt very good with where I was at and then with the rain. And then at Nashville, we all saw what happened there at the end. Yeah, just some different finishes for sure where this race track (Pocono) plays out in a more predictable manner than what others have. Surely, weather can be a factor in things like that, but with this track, you typically have an idea of (pause). The best car usually wins here at a higher percentage than at those others.”
After last year’s finish, how does seeing the large banner of you in the garage feel?
“I love Mavis for it for sure. Certainly, playing to the market is very good. Fortunate for it to be a race track where they know I have a great track record at. I’m glad they and the track were able to work something out to poke at the fans a little bit.”
What are your expectations for next weekend at Indianapolis?
“Yeah, I mean if you’re crazy about side-by-side racing, it probably won’t be for you. But it’s just a big event and you know, it’s still over time, some of the best cars with the best engines, best aerodynamics, best execution on pit road, all of those things equals a win at that track. There’s very many different ways you can win in NASCAR, right? It doesn’t always have to be through the normal competition that always happened. We’ve seen fuel mileage be a part of the last few winners and things like that. Indy will be no different. It’ll be an execution race. You’ll need to qualify well, but you just never know what can happen. Strategy is big there. I do hope that these cars have enough drag down the straightaway to create slingshot-like passes like what we have on the IndyCars at that track. The only thing that’ll limit that is I think our corner speed is just a hair too fast for the second-place guy to stay close enough to make that work. It’ll be tough, but I think on new tires, there’s a shot to see something pretty great. The purist needs to be looking at the strategy part of it.”
Do you feel being strong at Pocono applies to Indianapolis as well?
“I think there will be similarities for sure. A lot of it is just because of the long straightaways, the angles of the corners are not that different when you look at turn 2 here at Pocono. The way you would approach it here would be similar to the way you approach turn 2 at Indy. So I think for many, many years, the cars that have that good mix of horsepower or drag and downforce ratio, you take what you have next week to Indy from here at Pocono and see a lot of similarities. I do think that you can draw some of those conclusions.”
Do records like your career win amount matter to you?
“Yeah, it certainly does. Where I’ve shifted my goals in the final years of my career is to try to get to a big win number, get inside the top-10 of all-time winners. That’s the goal I can achieve week in and week out, right? Certainly, always have goals of winning a championship and that goes over a long period of time. But week-to-week, that’s what fuels me to continue to go to the race track and do this grind every week, is to try to nail down victories. To me, I think when this is all said and done, all these different formats have changed, cars have changed over time, but the wins still stand as equal. I think that’s why I value them so much.”
What would getting 55 career wins mean to you?
“Yeah, I think certainly, four-to-five years ago, I think my number would’ve been 50, somewhere in that range. But as times change, and you start to pick up your performance, you change your goals, and that certainly has changed. You know, I just feel so much more agitated by the ones that we had won. There’s been three this year, leading inside five to go and a late-race caution changed everything. So, I think if you want to get to those goals that you want to win, you have to capitalize on all the moments as you never know when the performance will continue to stay at this race for the years to come. You do know you have it now, so you try to capitalize.”
What about Pocono that suits your driving style?
“Yeah, I think I’m a part of it, for sure. You can’t not draw that conclusion, but just think this track and Indy, for whatever reason, have always been the tell-tale of where your team really stands. Because you have to have such good execution on pit road, your strategy has to be good and you have those three things, low drag, high downforce, high horsepower. Those are the things you have to have to be fast in the Cup Series week in and week out and this track in particular really magnifies it. So I think I’ve just had a really good team that figures this out and over time, I’ve given them information they’ve needed to build me fast cars. I think it’s just my driving style of being easy in the corner, hard off the corner works when you have these long straightaways.”
How do you plan to repeat your success at Richmond?
“Yeah, I mean I’m always trying to get better, it doesn’t matter what the result was. I think back to Richmond, we won, but we weren’t going to win unless a late-race caution came out. So, I think there’s some improvement to be made there and we’ve already gone over what we needed to do to be better there and then once we start preparing here in a few weeks after the break, we’ll treat it like a track we’ve never won at. That’s you know, focusing and bringing the best car we can and me making sure I do what I need to do to keep winning at that track. This is an never-ending cycle. Even though the cars look the same, been here three times with this car, every time, setups have been different. It’s always changing. If you change the weather 10 degrees at this race track, we’ll have to back to the drawing board and come up with something new. We’re never just resting on our laurels and say, ‘we won there last time, we’ll be good.’ We still have to put in the same preparation week in and week out to be good.”
Is there enough time to have a shot at the regular season championship?
“I think unless they have problems, it’ll be tough. But, everyone is struggling to find consistency, right? We were as consistent as anyone for five weeks and now have had five weeks the exact opposite, so just think you know, we’ll need help for sure and we’ll need to be as good as we were two months ago, right? As far as execution and finishing positions. It’s very, very possible, but you’re going to need a few stubbed toes here and there.”
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