Toyota GAZOO Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
RICHMOND, Va. (August 15, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Friday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How much shifting play into this race?
“I think everyone probably uses it equally – like 100 percent of the time on restarts. The first couple of laps when you are side-by-side and trying to battle for position, you are trying to get the best run you can off. As it gets single filed out, it is kind of driver preference and car preference. I think each driver and car want something different at different times, so I think you will see guys that will probably be battling 30, 40 laps into the run – one might be shifting, one might not be. It is just a matter of what your car needs at the time, just because the lap time difference is very minimal between the two.”
Is the practice time enough time to figure out this tire?
“I’m not sure it is going to be quite enough. It will be close. Last year we were able to – when you put on this type of tire, and it is, again, not the same. The hardened the left side tire for some reason, but the right side tire – we don’t know. It could last 40, 50 laps. It could be longer than that. We don’t know. If you go out right away and try to run every single lap that you can, maybe you will start to see some of that fall off, but last year, we had enough set of tires to just change them, whenever the lap times started falling off. We saw it at Watkins Glen as well. Really all of the position changes happened at the end, and then when it happened, people pitted. With us having less tires this time around, it is going to force you to go longer on them, and I just think most of the passing will happen at the end of those runs.”
What can Richmond show that they should have two races on the schedule?
“I think I’m probably the worst person to ask. I’m very biased. I grew up with two races here. We always went to both, but the sport is in a different place now. The way to get it back is you have to come here and sell out – at least the one time you are here, or have a really strong showing during that time. That, and improve short track racing. If you can do those things with the car, so if you can do those things, then possibly it is going to be put more in the forefront of the schedule going forward as well. I think all of those things are fluid things that can change year to year, and if we can get our short track stuff back better where it was towards with these types of cars, I think you will have a better case to having two races here.”
Did you watch the last lap back and if so, did it bring back any emotions?
“I mean, yes. It is just disappointing from my stand point, but I wasn’t going to win the race anyway had it not. I had about a one second period where I was supposed to win, and the other time, I was not. It wasn’t like the race I had here in ’08 where we led the entire race and then you don’t end up winning. Those are a little harder than the ones where – I’m going to win, and well, I’m not. It is just wild. It is wild how things turned out when you hear all of the radio back, now looking back on it, it was just a wild moment.”
Do you expect the intensity to increase with the Playoffs looming?
“I don’t really see a big change. This is not really a big fashion forward track when it comes to strategy. It is pretty straightforward, especially with the amount of tires that we have, so I don’t really notice a big change in intensity. More desperation perhaps, you may see someone mid pack try to take a big swing with their setup trying something just totally out of the box, hoping to hit something, but other than that, I can’t really pinpoint anything, except for at the end of race. There is always going to be chatter when you are racing around those that have to win to get in the Playoffs at this point of the season. You just know that those group of drivers are going to be more intense around you and make more aggressive moves and put you in pretty tough spots. That is really where it changes – late race restarts where that is their last and only attempt.”
What is your response to Kyle Petty’s thoughts this week?
“He is right in that sense. It is not a stock car. Talking about – I definitely heard him talk about, how we used to bring a car off the street and turn it into a racecar – those days have obviously been gone for decades now. He is definitely partially right. The difference is that to address – we’ve had exciting moments in this car, and I don’t disagree with that. The issue is that it happened early in the Next Gen era, where there was so much disparity between the fast cars and the slower cars. Now – everyone over time, sense there has been no development for years and years now, nothing has really changed – the field has just tightened up. You can see it from the fastest to the slowest. The first time here in the Next Gen was on average lap time seven tenths or something in that range, and last time we came here, it was three and a half. The field is just now running the same speed, and at a track where you have to have three to three and a half tenths of speed to overtake the car in front of you, that mean that the first-place fastest car is going to struggle to pass the 25th if he just gets put behind him. That is the fundamental part that is going to be tough for us to overcome, unless we have some major changes with the tire – Goodyear is working on that. They are coming here with a more aggressive tire. You have to applaud that. They are willing to do it, and it came from tying it last year, but beyond that, you have to fix the attitude – I’ve said it a million times on my podcast – you have to get rid of the underbody downforce and put it on the over body so you have the ability, like you do in the Xfinity Series to drive up behind someone and get them off the bottom. That is when running the same speed will be okay, because you can at least get close to the car in front of you to manipulate them and slow them down, where now the leader has the 100 percent advantage over the second-place car. Xfinity is a little more even, a little more 50/50.”
How are you approaching this race knowing you only have one shot to win at Richmond this year?
“It is an important short track for us. We certainly have a lot of race tracks where this place kind of plays into that. Certainly, there is some similarities to Loudon that you can draw. Iowa is a hybrid of it. It is important in that sense, but it is important to me because it is my home town track. You have to take advantage. I only have one shot.”
Do you know where the line is because of what happened here last year?
“I think NASCAR drew a line in the sand and said that was too far. I think that they have been better about drawing the line in the sand on certain things, like the right rear hooks we have seen over the last year, them kind of drawing the line in the sand. They are not afraid to make hard decisions, and I think that is very, very important with the governing of the sport in general, so it is not a circus. I do feel a little bit better about it than we did 12 months ago; I just feel that I think certainly, that was the first time we’ve seen something like that happen and then NASCAR had a precedence to set in the sense that – what do you from here. If you let that go, then you open up a floodgate of crazy things that could happen that would be bad for the relevance and the legitimacy of the sport, and so I think everyone probably has a little better understanding now, because of the ruling. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with it, but you certainly have a better understanding.”
Will Corey Heim be a contracted 23XI driver next year?
“Yeah, he is our development driver for the foreseeable future, so he has plenty of races ahead of him with us.”
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