TOYOTA RACING – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
LAS VEGAS (October 3, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 National Debt Relief Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
What tracks are you worried about coming up?
“I don’t know. I’m just so week to week. It’s hard for me to look that far forward. I obviously know the schedule, but, I mean, yeah, if I had any issues of any tracks, if it were, if it were Talladega or if it were Homestead, the position that I’m in is dictated off of what I do this weekend. So, full focus is the week to week, truthfully, and that builds you the cushion or the gap that you’re going to end up facing later on when you get to those tracks.”
How critical is it to create a gap from the rest of the Chase field?
“Well, I think ultimately, it’s a numbers game that, of course, if you’re racing less cars, you have a better chance than if you’re racing more. When you had to old final four, it was four cars, and you had a 25% chance. Now there’s percentages would change based off of your track history, how good have you been there and stuff like that. If you can separate yourself by putting really good finishes and wins together early in a Chase, then typically, yeah, you’re going to narrow the field down and narrow the competition down. So that goes back into the do the work now and then you check out the results later, type of mentality. But overall, yeah, it’s all just going to work itself out, however it is, and there’s kind of peaks and valleys to this that some teams had a rough, maybe week or two, and I think that, they could end up going on a run and winning a couple, put themselves right back in it, too. So you just never know.”
Does the weather impact what you bring to the track this weekend?
“We have we have to always evolve, different setups and things like that, for different changes, track changes, tracks aging, things like that. It’s going to be lots of sun, pretty warm, and so a little bit more off throttle time, more than likely than what we’ve had here over the last couple. So, of course, to me, as a driver, I think about my role, what I need to do. It will change this weekend compared to what we’ve had over the last couple, certainly. We’ll find out kind of where the pace is indicative for – the pace is, this time, compared to where it was last time, and kind of play our strategy off of that.”
Do you think still need 40 points per race or has that thought adjusted as you have gone through the Chase?
“Well, it always, I think it’s a reasonable goal. I think that’s what we kind of averaged in the regular season-ish, and we had a really good regular season. So, I mean, if someone’s going to go out there and perform great in the last 10, and negate kind of what they did in the first 25, then that’s great performance. I think that it was a goal set out that I think most people wanted to achieve, and they were on pace for that, but that doesn’t mean that that’s going to be good enough. I’m definitely not driving to a point total. I’m driving to try to get the best result, and then stack as many points as we can. I felt as though if you average it out, that’s what you needed.”
How difficult would it be to add a car for next season at this point?
“I mean, extremely difficult, this late in the game, October 1st-ish. I don’t, yeah, I don’t see how that’d be possible, but nothing, I mean, it certainly wouldn’t be a very strong entry, I wouldn’t think. Adding car is more than just putting that car on the racetrack. You have that personnel, where’s the crew coming from? It takes years and years to get a third car going and going competitively.”
How much do you share between the teams at Joe Gibbs Racing?
“Truthfully, it’s all kind of open between all the race teams. They all each know what each one has. The 19 (Chase Briscoe) just had better track position than I did at the end. I don’t think there was any speed difference between his car and my car. I think he jumped us on a pit stop, and came out ahead of us. He got the front row, that put me now back to the second row. That’s all she wrote from there, and so it just the competition’s so close. It’s all those little, small details that truthfully matter. It seemed like the race kind of played out very well in the 5’s (Kyle Larson) favor of how long the runs were, when he caught traffic. It was the end of the race or the end of the stage, and so, things kind of worked out very interestingly last week, and it worked out perfectly for the 5. We chipped away and stayed right where we were at. Never could get past that hump of where we were, but we always keep track of kind of where all our teammates are, the comments that they have, and how we can improve our speed, if we’re just comparing amongst each other, it’s always analyzing, where I need to be better or where the team needs to be better relative to our teammates, because we know that that is the data mark that we have to pay attention to.”
How does this track challenge you?
“It’s very challenging, because the two corners are just so different. How you approach turn one is far different than how you approach turn three here. This track is far more narrow than a lot of the mile and a half that we have. It’s a super aero-sensitive racetrack, especially in turn one. We have a weekend that’s out of characteristic hot this weekend, so there’s just this track brings so many variables. I think that we’ve been here during windstorms, and there’s all kinds of different weather and stuff, so again, you change a little variable, one thing or another out here in the desert, and it completely changes the racetrack.”
Are you having to readjust what feels like a big gap or small gap in the points?
“If you could win, yes. If you can win, absolutely. If you don’t think you can win, then the gaps are the same as what they were last year, but everyone, I would think, in contention, thinks that they can. So, I would say they feel smaller than years past.”
How do you take the information and get better from the last race you ran there?
“Well, I mean, like Martinsville, just as an example, what you brought up, it was a dominating race, and obviously, a little pit miscue, and a loose wheel there on that final run. But I don’t know, I just, when I prepare, the result really, whatever the result was, doesn’t really matter to me. I certainly know what happened, where we were strong in the spring is no correlation to what we will be eight months down the road. So, I don’t prepare any differently based off of kind of how I ran. I just figure out how I can go faster the next time. Every race is broken down the same. Not much changes based off of the result.”
How do you stay fresh mentally at this point of the season?
“I mean, it’s difficult this part of the year, for sure. Just simply that the wear and the tear, the age, and things like that, it’s a grind, but I’ve actually taken a little more time off. My team really does a good job of front-loading appearances early in the year to that way than give me some more time for the Chase and things like that. So, we always were conscious of saving some in the tank for the last stretch run. I felt like that’s really worked well for us, and that’s something that we approach the same this year. It’s hard, it’s a grind, but you have to go get that extra little bit, that you feel like you don’t have.”
As someone who spent a lot of time with Kyle Busch, will you focus on it more with all of the tributes scheduled to take place?
“Yeah, certainly. I think that this is a place I just know that the Busch brothers, especially, really took a lot of pride in running, wanting to run well here, as their hometown. I like all the tributes and things like that, because just so much in our society, you move on to the next thing, right? Then it’s so easy to forget, and just when you have these tributes that just keep going on, especially throughout the year, it’s, like, a really good reminder, right, that you need to put things in perspective and helps us keep remembering someone that was so big and so influential in our sport. I say keep doing them as long as we can.”
What impact does losing someone like Brad Keselowski do to a team?
“I would find it really, really hard to do what apparently Brad’s (Keselowski) titles were. I just went about it differently in the sense of that I have a grand vision, and then I hired the people to then, you play that out. You make that happen. I’ll put in the big puzzle pieces. You guys fill in all the little ones, and we’re going to create the picture that we want here. I couldn’t imagine having to do my job as a driver, even if I’m even with that team, and then doing Dave Rogers’ (Sr. Director, Competition, 23XI Racing) job also, there is absolutely no way that I’d be able to do it entirely too much work, but we’re not privy to, like, what structure was around them, right? Was he in the building 10 hours a day, like those guys or did he was he doing it to where it was that he had the people in place? I don’t know, it just seems like that would be a really tough task to be the comp director and the driver, because the two are very different. But again, I don’t know if it was just visions and things like that, he was having other people play out. But it’s certainly challenging. Again, I just couldn’t imagine taking on both, and I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for workloads. So, it’ll be something that certainly is going to be a pretty big change over there. Obviously, there was a jump in performance, when he went over there, and whether that be through – could that be manufacturer stuff? Could that be technical stuff? Very wide range of reasons why teams run better after certain times or not, but, you know, the proof will be in what happens years down the road, right? And so, it certainly is going to be a big reset for the whole Roush Fenway group.”
How has the intermediate racing changed as the car has continued to evolve?
“I think the field has just gotten close, because there’s not been any real big rules changes when it comes to, like, major aerodynamics or there’s been no horsepower changes on the big tracks. We’re years and years into this, and if you give teams more than two or three shots at one racetrack, the clump of the lap time is just going to get tighter, and then it becomes the track position racing, like we’ve seen. Now, that doesn’t mean someone can’t overcome it. I mean, fast cars still can make their way through the field, but you’ve really got to build a gap on the field in order to do that. It’s just very hard otherwise.”
Where can you trace your competitiveness too? What has Michael Jordan taught you about being a competitor?
“I think some of it is you’re just, it’s born into genetics. I mean, when I was really young, before I even got into racing, I was absolutely pissed when my grandma would beat me at putt putt (laughter). I’ve always been that way. I’ve always been a really sore loser. I think some of that is genetics, and I think that some of it is, once you get a taste of success – there’s some people that that is their dopamine hit, that then they have to go get more. So then you have to figure out the roadmap to how you’re going to get that. That’s when the competitive side of it starts to kick in. But every person is different. I mean, every person’s drive is different. There’s 36 drivers, and I can tell you, not one of them is the same in their level of how competitive they are. Now, we might be talking in the margins, but everyone’s a little different. Everybody’s want is a little bit different. So, yeah, I don’t know. I blame my parents, I guess, as far as the relationship with Michael (Jordan, co-owner, 23XI Racing), of course, I’ve only got to see him again as retired, Michael. I was not around during his playing days, and so I learned, like, the rest of you about his competitive nature through documentaries and things like that. I understood all of the crazy tyrant things that he would say because it was something, it’d be something I would say. I think we’re very, very similar in that regard, which is why we think very similar lots of times on decisions that we’ve made.”
What do you think of the scheme that Kyle Larson is running? I know you were there when he won at Bristol.
“That one was a heartbreaker. I had that race in the bag. I think my fuel pump cut off. One of the wild things in my career. My fuel pump shut off with a few laps to go, something like that, and I believe it was him and (Jeff) Burton maybe battling at the end, so I definitely remember the car, and certainly it brings back tons of memories and good memories, because that was really fun time in our sport, the fans didn’t think it was a very fun time with that car, but it was really the height of the sport, and a lot of good things going on, and I am really looking forward to seeing it in my camera (laughter).”
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.
Toyota directly employs nearly 64,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of over 50 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.
For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.
