Toyota GAZOO Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
CHICAGO (July 5, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Chicago Street Course.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Can you tell us what you remember from your win at Dover last year?
“I can’t tell you a whole lot. I think it was me and (Kyle) Larson at the end of that race. Yeah, I just remember we’ve been really strong at Dover (Motor Speedway) for the last, all the Next Gen races. All of them, I thought that we’ve been first or second on speed and that’s the first one that we actually executed well. We didn’t win any of the others, but it’s just one where we finally executed like a good day. I remember Larson you know kind of coming on strong there towards the end. I was trying to play defense trying not to make a mistake, trying not to give out too much time in one corner to him. Yeah, I think it was one of the six or seven times I beat him.”
Can you tell me what it takes to run successfully on a concrete surface?
“It takes a different feel, for sure. The car’s a little bit different there. It feels more rigid at concrete tracks; you can feel the air pressure in the tires quite a bit more. It’s just a little bit different feel, that’s all I can kind of explain it. Dover is a very unique, shape track anyway. It doesn’t look very unique from like an aerial view, but you drive it very unorthodox to which you would in normal oval. It’s just a fun track. I used to absolutely hate that racetrack for the first 12 years of my career, maybe more. Since then, I studied the greats – Jimmie Johnson that performed extremely well there. My style is a little bit different and have found some success (there).”
What can NASCAR take in part as they look elsewhere street racing?
“Yeah, I mean I don’t know. I think that this is certainly a well-designed street race. Obviously, you have some movement really great passing zones, that’s the most important thing. It’s one thing to try to kind of parade around the city, it’s another to actually have a race track that you can race at and pass at. While there’s parts of it on the back end of the race track where it gets very tight, yes you need to be one lane, there’s at least three-to-four heavy breaking passing zone. What I like about it is, you’re in a big city one of the biggest in the U.S. You’ve got very racy race track and you got a beautiful backdrop, so those are the things that I think are very important to building a street race and obviously, anywhere they look going forward hopefully has all the things that Chicago has brought.”
With Michael Jordan’s presence at 23XI, would the team miss this race more than any other?
“Yeah, probably. I mean, we do a lot of activation here in this city as a race team. We have our partner celebration event over the Yacht Club here later this afternoon. Jordan Brand is going to have their event the town, so we have quite a bit of activation that we do here in the city. It’s important to us and it’s important to the partners that we have. This is a big spot for McDonald’s, obviously a really big spot for the Jordan Brand and several other ones that it’s a big market for them that they like to be included. That’s why we’ve got four cars one with Corey Heim and Robinhood. This was a big market for them that they need to be in, so that’s why we got the activation that we do.”
Can you talk about boosting the sport with any rivalries and the In-Season Challenge?
“I think that’s one of the things that the In-Season Tournament was meant to do, right? To create a rivalry that maybe you wouldn’t think of. While that rivalry may only last one week, the social media content will live on for forever for it. I think that’s the key parts of why they’re doing the tournament and why it’s important, and hopefully, you have another one of those battles this weekend of you know the eight matchups that you’ve got. You’ve got some pretty compelling head-to-heads there that I think are going to be pretty close. I can’t wait to see this end up on an oval, but unfortunately by the time we get to an oval, there’s going to be so few matchups left. Maybe that’ll allow them to focus more on those, but yeah, I think it’s super compelling. I don’t know, I think it’s certainly good it’s good for people like Ty Dillon to celebrate when they knock the number one seed out. That’s good for their team, good for him and certainly, well-deserving. Regardless of the track type or the circumstances, it’s still something that that team and that driver that came in as the last seed can hang their hat on for at least for a week.”
Where would you like to see this race go if it doesn’t come on the schedule?
“I mean I personally would like to see them do everything they can to keep it here (Chicago). I’d like to see the city rally behind this race. I could just tell you that non-racing fans at the hotel I’m staying at are talking about the race. I think that it’s certainly got some sort of economic impact to the city itself. We’re certainly exposing some new fans to this. I think it’s very important. I think you try everything you can to get this thing back here in Chicago, because I believe it is an important place for us. I still would like to see, you know Chicagoland (Speedway) is not a substitute for this race. I’d like to see us run both. I don’t know where you go next, not really sure. Wild thought is, what about a street oval? What about one, all you need is just flat pavement to make a race track. We run a flat Clash, right? It’s at a flat track and we kind of make it work. I get it, though. There are so many things to put on a race so I wouldn’t know. But there’s a lot of hospitality and stuff around this track that you need miles to expand into. But I’m not sure the right place, I just know that it seems like it works here.”
How do you think a straight oval would work?
“I mean, yeah. Look at the layout of this track. If you just cut half of it off, you almost would have an Indy (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) type. It wouldn’t be an oval, but it would be four corners, right? Again, I don’t know if the race becomes that more compelling, but it certainly would become less spread out. I’m just saying, surely you can find streets similar somewhere where you’re just kind of connect the four corners. I get there’s so many different things, it’s just thought-provoking from my standpoint of like, ‘we haven’t tried that.’ ‘What about that?’”
How stressful is the qualifying lap here at Chicago given the lack of margin of error?
“You have to push it! You certainly have to be on edge of, where your apex is, the wall. You have to use it up all the way if you want to compete. It’s nerve wracking. We’ve qualified well each of the races that we’ve run here. The rain has put a damper on some of those finishes but overall, it’s just it’s pretty straightforward, other than the back half of the racetrack where then you’re running right up against the wall. Tight confines. You’re sliding it into the apexes that you can’t miss by a foot, here-and-there. It’s pretty interesting. Th good news is, you always get another shot, where at other race tracks. you get one opportunity, one lap to do it. Here, you’re going to either run multiple laps one time, or you can run multiple times, multiple laps. So, it’s not like it’s a do-or-die just in one lap. I think if you’re going to get the pole, you must do it that way. that I think you can still get it good qualifying effort with multiple tries.”
Do you get the feeling of your appetite for the Chicago Street Race is shared among drivers and teams?
“I mean, what’s the alternative? Until we know the alternative, I don’t know whether they’re ones better or worse than this. I just feel like this is a bigger event than what, you know, some of the ovals that we go through simply because of the atmosphere of where it’s at. The exposure to new fans that are here casually in the city. I can only speak from my experiences in the casual people that, you know, for instance, I go shopping yesterday. I go all these different stores, ‘what are you in town for?’ ‘Oh yeah, there’s a race.’ ‘We were talking about going to that.’ ‘We didn’t go last year because the rain, but we’re thinking about going.’ That’s kind of what. You want these are younger people that, they’re not going to travel to Chicagoland to go to race, you have to have it right here where they can walk to it. I don’t know if anyone shares the same sentiment I do, but I don’t I don’t run the series, I don’t make the decisions. But it just seems like from my standpoint, there’s more excitement around the venue itself than what a normal NASCAR race venue has.”
What is 23XI doing to bring momentum back to the No. 23 team and Bubba Wallace?
“Yeah, he’s still in the Playoffs after all those DNFs. You just can’t panic in the situation that they’re in. I think if we were struggling for speed on the No. 23 car, then there would be a more heightened sense of alertness to what’s going on. A lot of these are just circumstances. Some of them are circumstances that that we control, some of them are mechanicals we’ve controlled, some of them we have not. And others, it’s just other people making mistakes in front of him and he’s getting caught up in the middle of them. So, I think you have stay the course and not panic and hope things play out the way that they should. I think if things play out naturally, he is certainly one of the fastest cars that is on that bubble. I’m not concerned about him racing his way into the Playoffs. There’s a lot of talk about cutline moving and all that. I’m not really sure how much more it moves up. I mean, some of these races are not like super wildcards. These are these are pretty straightforward races where you know who you’re going to race, you know who’s going to be up front. And really for the most part, we’ve had pretty predictable winners this season aside from a couple. I think that if he was 50 (points) behind at this point, I still would feel okay about it. Not great, but okay about it, but him being ahead with all the bad luck he’s had, I’m not too concerned, truthfully.”
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