Toyota GAZOO Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (September 27, 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 Kansas Speedway.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Sport Clips Haircuts Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Where do things stand with Ty (Gibbs) right now and what are the expectations for the next six races?
“I think they are in a good place. We had some meetings this week and they were all productive meetings. The guts of that are going to be confidential.”
Did all the JGR drivers get to speak and did leadership participate?
“All the drivers had an opportunity to speak and try to come up with a plan. We did our best to come up with one.”
Looking back five or six days later, is there anything you felt like you should have done differently?
“Certainly, absolutely. I definitely got hot under the collar and it went too far on my end. There was things I wish I could have done a little bit differently.”
Can you talk about what your mindset is going into this weekend?
“I feel good about it. I feel as though we’ve been super strong here the last four or five years. It’s interesting, this is the one track on the schedule where we just haven’t had a clean race. We’ve had pit road issues, we’ve had mechanical failures, all kind of different things that have derailed us from finishing or winning most of the races we’ve been at here. I’m just praying for a mistake free race on my end and if that’s the case we are going to be in contention like we always are here.”
Goodyear is bringing a new right-side tire. Do you know what to expect as far as wear goes?
“I’m not really sure. Any quote that’s given by Goodyear I dig into it and try to figure it out what it means. Overall it’s different. We’re all having to guess. Does it mean more wear or will it be more sensitive to tire pressure? I don’t know and I don’t think many teams know. Certainly a construction change always throws a kink in things. We’ll find out early and being in the second group will be an advantage. We can play off of teammates and different Toyota cars who are in that first group to give us a baseline of what they thought they have versus what they actually have.”
Should we expect the same guys who are good here at Kansas this weekend will also be good at Las Vegas in a few weeks?
“It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since we’ve been on a true mile and-a-half racetrack. When you hear it’s been months and months, it was like wow. I thought we had more of them on the schedule than what we do right now, being that it’s been the best racing we’ve got right now. It’s been a minute since we’ve had the opportunity, so by the time we get here you should see some sort of correlation from Kansas results this weekend to what we see at Vegas.”
You have two new pit crew members this weekend. What is your level of concern for how they will do?
“I’m only going to be able to control what I can. I faith that when they’ve done practice things have been pretty smooth when they have practiced together. This is part of paying the piper when you have a wheel fall off. It’s just part of it. Hopefully we can take two new guys to victory lane.”
Would you prefer to be racing on the Roval or the oval at Charlotte in the fall?
“The best racing you are going to find is the oval. It’s really hard to bring an example of when the Roval will be better, unless you throw in a green-white-checkered, then you can have some chaos at the end that saves the day. Truthfully when we had the Coke 600, we just had a great battle with the 1 (Ross Chastain) and the 24 (William Byron) and nobody could hold the lead. It was wildly entertaining from my seat. The oval and this car work well together. I believe the reason the Roval is staying is because NASCAR wants to keep a road course in the playoffs, just as a competitive balance. Other than that I can’t really see where it has a place.”
Seems like changes are coming to playoffs next year. If you could design it, what would your preference be?
“I’ve told those in the industry what my preference would be and it would be a balance of full season and playoffs. I think you need a little bit of both to make everyone happy. Obviously the bigger the sample size the truer the champion is going to feel. There certainly needs to be an element where it keeps it exciting all the way to the end of the year. When you run 36 races there’s an opportunity for it to be exciting naturally without cutoffs and things like that. I think there is a balance that can be had. My preference is the more races to decide a champion the better it’s going to be. Anything more than one is a gain, and anything more than three or four is a bonus.”
The Penske cars were the ones to beat last week. Can Joe Gibbs Racing close the gap before Phoenix?
“I think so, anything is possible. There’s a wheel force testing coming up at Phoenix that we need to put our best foot forward when it comes to preparing for that, getting the most out of our cars. It’s going to take a rethink of our philosophy. I don’t think that it’s one little thing here and there and we are right there. It’s a gap and we’re going to need to change our philosophy because I don’t think anything will be different than the last three years. What is important is we are going to have that opportunity and hopefully we use it to the best of our ability.”
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