TOYOTA RACING – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
MADISON, Ill. (September 12, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 King’s Hawaiian Cinnamon Rolls Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How important is it to continue your season-long consistency as you battle for a championship?
“I mean, you got to stay on the track. It certainly helps your cause like last week when you’ve got issues, if you can keep it on the track, keep it on the lead lap. It gives you an opportunity to kind of make up for those tough days if things break your way towards the end. So, it definitely was a crucial part of where we ended up in the regular season.”
You have experience going through the 10-race Chase. Does that matter?
“No, it doesn’t really matter. This sport is week to week and every week it’s just a new reset. So, there’s not a whole lot numbers wise that correlate to what happened last week or what happened 10 years ago, correlates today. I think that it’s good for veteran patience, but that’s about it.”
Do we need to look at the metric or go back to the random draw?
“The random stuff, no. Absolutely not. I mean, could you imagine going to the finale and two guys battling for a championship, one draws pill one, like that’s horrible. Random? Absolutely not. You got to earn your way. If you want to do 50-50, that’s fine, because we’re 20 some races in. If you’re buried in the point, it’s not because the metric did it. It’s because you didn’t perform well.”
If it rains, how should you set it?
“If it rains, it’s difficult because, last week, kicked off the Chase, and it also was after a speedway, and we all know speedways can get very random, right? Yeah, I don’t know. We don’t want to make it too complicated for the fans that at this racetrack, you set your metric one way, another way, you do it, I don’t know, if you just do 50% or more of where you are in the standings, then I think that that kind of will fix itself in the long run.”
Do you think your race should reflect the complete race and stage points should continue?
“I mean, come on, man. Now we’re arguing something different, like, just stop complaining for one week. That’s what it was built around. We worked with NASCAR on this for quite a while and we came up with the stages, then we came up with, how are we going to reward it? And the reason we did it that way is because it just didn’t seem right for someone to dominate the day, blow an engine with 20 to go, and it was like they were never there, right? So, the reason that they gave points, the way they did, and reward them at the, at the amount that they did at certain points of the race is to give the reward to the greatness of someone that goes and runs the table. That’s what’s going to be great about this format is that even with four or five races out and someone’s 100 points out, it just takes a couple of runnings of the table and you’re there. I think that it’s going to make it far more compelling, and it’s also going to reward those that perform great for an extended period of time. I think that the amount that the stages are rewarded are fair to the total amount that you get for the end of the race.”
Jeff Dickerson responded to your comments this week. How would you respond to his thoughts? Was it fair?
“I think it was somewhat fair in all. I don’t really have a lot more to answer that, but it was somewhat fair.”
How important are wins in the Chase?
“I don’t know. You don’t know whether you have to win until you have to win. I mean, you just really don’t know, we don’t know the implications of last week. We won’t know them until the after Homestead, right? We don’t know, and we’re kind of looking in the short term, and it’s a big gasp of air, like, oh my gosh, we just lost half our lead, but it’s seven days later, we’re going to try to get more points, right? So, it’s very week to week and I think that any things that happen in each one of these 10 weeks, we will not know the implications till it’s all said and done. You just got to play it week by week and get all the points you can every week. I feel like given the circumstances of last week for us, we maximized as good as we could, the damage that had, but someone’s going to win this week. That person’s going to gain a lot of points, and we’ll be talking about them as part of the championship picture if it’s not me. We always live in the now, but this is all part of the bigger picture.”
What can you improve at this track despite your consistent success here?
“Yeah, I can’t rely on the results alone. I think that when I dug into this racetrack this week, I think that while we won, we finished second, a few other years. I don’t know that we were that car on pace, right? I think we did a really good job executing. I had some fortunate breaks. I had some good restarts, and then you end up winning the race, and so I don’t think that we had that, we had race winning pace when it mattered, but I don’t think we’ve been as good as the results have shown. So, there was a lot to dig into this week and try to get better at and we’ll try to start that today and go practice.”
What are you going to be looking for in this practice session?
“I would think the first part is whether we guessed right on with the aero package changes for this racetrack. It you look at kind of where we struggled this year, it’s been, when we went to this package, at a track for the first time. Bristol, we were not that great, and quite a few others. I can name a few others where it was, we just missed it. Darlington certainly, in the first race, we missed it. So hopefully we’ve learned from that and we’ll tell pretty early in practice whether our guess on the setup is the correct direction for what this racetrack needs. Hopefully we’re in the ballpark to where we can tweak once we get here, right? I mean, there are certain parts and pieces of the car that you can’t change, and we tried to do our best to make sure that we were pretty versatile when we got here.”
Has there been any talks about the superspeedway package after Daytona?
“No, I mean, I’m always in contact with them about different subjects and whatnot. I think you let them kind of guide where that goes. I’ve given my input on it, and I certainly think that they’ll let you guys know sooner than later on what’s the come for Talladega. I would I would certainly think that they were not displeased with what they saw, and there’s certainly things that they thought that they could see that could be a little bit better.”
When you see the Brad Keselowski and Carson Hocevar posters? Is that amusing to you?
“Sure. As long as it’s not you, it’s always amusing (laughter). I mean, it’s promoters jobs are to promote, and they do what they see fit for that.”
Does the anxiety or stress diminish now that the rounds have been eliminated?
“Yeah, I would say so. Certainly, when you’re on the cusp of being around that cut line, in a cutoff race, yeah, those weeks are definitely stressful, but I’ll be honest with you, every week so far, and we’ve only two weeks into this, but yeah, every week I’m treating it like, it’s the last race, so, I mean, yeah, I think it’s more 10 weeks of the anxiety versus the only three times, and then you got your finale. I think that the intensity and the anxiety for 16 guys is here every week for this format.”
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