Toyota GAZOO Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
POCONO, Pa. (June 21, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday after winning the pole position for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway. This is Hamlin’s first pole position of the season, his fifth at Pocono in 36 starts and the 44th of his career.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
You are picking up where you left off at Michigan. How do you keep your focus with everything that has gone on within the last couple of weeks?
“Truthfully, I’m on a run. I don’t know how else to say it. Everything is going really well right now. You know inevitably it’s not going to keep going forever, but right now it is.”
Have you found out something about Pocono here recently that you didn’t previously?
“I remember when they repaved I felt like I lost the advantage. When the track was worn out, there were things I could do in turn one and turn three, but I wasn’t able to do it as well. When they repaved, it made grip everywhere and made everyone run the same line. As this track has aged, we’ve started to move around again and there are little nuances and advantages to be had. I do feel like it’s starting to get back to that?”
How did you feel about the car in race trim during practice?
“Not great, truthfully. I was very surprised about the big balance change. I ran as fast as I could in practice and I think we were 26th or something like that. What was encouraging was we ran our fastest lap on Lap 16, so we had some capability to it. We knew we could make it better in the short run, you can’t run your fastest lap on Lap 16. There was improvement to be had and told them what I needed and I obviously I know how to drive around the track and they gave me exactly what I asked for.”
The two fastest cars in practice had issues in qualifying and are both starting in the back. What does it mean to have two of the potentially strongest cars starting at the rear?
“There will be some opportunities to do some strategy stuff to get track position. Nothing is free and usually comes at a cost of where you have to run on older tires at some point so you. It won’t be at an advantage. It makes it hard, this track is similar to Indy to pass. They are going to have to be really patient and it’s going to take awhile. They will likely miss out on some stage points. It’s the way the breaks go sometimes. We feel like we are in a good spot, I feel like I just need to execute restarts and don’t mess up on pit road and do my job and we should be fine.”
With Bubba 13th in points and potentially losing out on stage points, what does this do for them as they think about getting into the playoffs?
“I don’t think you can get to panicked about it, you can’t change it. If you are Bubba Wallace it’s not something you did. I’m confident it’s not something the team did, it’s just one of those mechanical things where the anvil fell on your this time. It happens to others as well. It’s very easy for drivers and teams to get down about their bad luck, but everyone has it and usually washes itself out over time. I think they are running fast enough to be a playoff car and a lot of that is going to depend on who jumps up on the wild card races over the next 10 weeks, but I feel confident the 23 team will be a part of it.”
How is your confidence level heading into the weekend with the pole?
“If you would have asked me an hour ago, I probably wasn’t going to be very confident. I thought with how off the balance was in practice I just wanted to get a top-10 qualifying effort. If I can do that and make some adjustments overnight, then I’m back in the game. If I had a poor qualifying effort, that was just going to make the balance worse and that’s just going to be how it was going to be no matter how good your car is. I thought the task to get another win was going to need to be starting in the top-15. But now that we are first, we need to make sure we execute well and max that balance in race trim and we should be fine.”
All four JGR Toyotas and Tyler Reddick were in the top-10 in qualifying but none of you were in in the top-10 in practice. What was the difference from practice to qualifying?
“Good question, we all missed it with our simulation this week. We all work around the same thing and then when we show up, they were able to work around me when they saw my balance was off. We were able to make some adjustments for that group B practice but it wasn’t quite enough. They needed more time, which was the time between practice and qualifying to get it where they needed it to be. I’m confident it’s going to be better now.”
Even with all the success you’ve had at Pocono, how do you make sure you keep doing all the things to continue to be successful here?
“I study every track like I’ve never won there, that’s just the way I’ve always done things and it’s the way that I feel like has allowed me to adapt to so many different cars and things. When the track changes are the same you got to be able to adapt. I treat Pocono like I’ve never won here. I will go out there and study other drivers who have not even won at this track. If there’s someone that I’ve noticed who is fast, I look at it. For example, with William Byron I looked at his corner entry and how (Kyle) Larson’s corner exit and I try to put all of that together to improve myself.”
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