TOYOTA RACING – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (September 2, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Wednesday as part of NASCAR Chase Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
As someone who’s sort of lived through this format before, does it give you more of an advantage compared to some of the other drivers who don’t have that experience?
“I’m not really sure. It is a little different this time around because we have stages and we have more points for winning than the last time we had the Chase. I do think that there’s an opportunity for drivers to make up more points than we had in the past. So, generally, I don’t know that my tenure and experience is necessarily an advantage other than when we see when we go from track to track. I’ve just got a lot of starts at each one of these tracks.
Where do you stand on the idea of there being luck in racing, either for good or bad?
“I’ve always said I don’t believe in luck, but I don’t know. After 20 years I definitely believe that it’s part of motorsports. I would say, though, generally speaking, there’s going to be less luck involved with whoever wins this championship because the sample size is bigger. It’s no different than analytics in baseball. One at bat, analytics just doesn’t matter. But over the course of a season, you can start to draw a picture. I think that luck is a thing because in racing usually in a one versus one sport, your competition makes a mistake, you capitalize on you’re opposing team. In NASCAR, your competition makes a mistake, and it can end up costing you your day. So, there’s absolutely an element of luck in our sport.”
Is your confidence as high as it was when you won Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono back-to-back?
“I think so. But you need the results to get fully back to a three-in-a-row type of confidence. So, that was a good part of the schedule for us, and then we went to tracks that we knew that, like, you know, I think it was San Diego or something that was right after. I was like, “Okay, well, it’s going to end now.” I just think that confidence is still high because even on our mediocre days, we’re still doing a really good job of running in the top five.”
You’re like the poster child for not getting older but getting better. How much goes into competing against these 20-somethings on a weekly basis?
“It’s tough because they’re all fast. They all have tremendous amount of speed. Even the young guys now have enough experience to contend. I would’ve said early on in the career, like William Byron, man, he has all the things but he’s just not experienced enough. But now he’s got that and there’s several guys that have just got enough pedigree and enough experience. Even though I’ve got 40 starts at a track, their 15 to 20 is enough. I don’t know that my age is that big of an advantage as it used to be.”
At the start of the year you mentioned that you injured your shoulder again and that you were just going to have to put off surgery and kind of deal with it. How is your shoulder, and how confident are you that it’s not going to be an issue here the last 10 weeks?
“It’s bothered me a little bit more over the last month or so, and we’ll look at it in a month to kind of see where it’s at. Buy obviously need to get it worked on and get it fixed for sure. But inside the car it doesn’t really bother me. It’s more afterwards and for the next few days after that.”
Do you have a date set for surgery in the off season?
“No date yet.”
Do you see the other Toyotas as your steepest competition for the next 10 weeks?
“If you would use numbers, you would say yes. But there are drivers that I believe step up in these scenarios in the playoffs, in the Chase. So I don’t believe that the advantage is quite as steep as maybe as what it was.”
In general, do you like this Chase format? And from talking to other drivers, do you get a sense that they do as well?
“I certainly think that all of them would tell you it’s a more fair way to do it. It’s not the 36 races that some of the old guys were really pushing for. I certainly would’ve loved the 36 races as it stood now, but we could’ve not predicted this, predicted the future. But, I’m fine with it. We got a great schedule ahead of us and I think that this is certainly such a giant leap forward in crowning a champion from what we’ve had.”
Last year you put your heart into the preparation for that final race, and it went according to plan until fate intervened. Now that you’ve got a 10-race body of work coming up, how is the approach different, and is it actually harder or easier to prepare for this?
“I think it’s harder, I really do It’s simply because there not going to be any opportunity for me to take two weeks and study for one racetrack. It’s not physically possible. Now, there’s an opportunity for me to spend a little bit more time on these last 10, which I will do, but it will never reach the depths in which I worked for Phoenix last year. It’s just simply because there’s no weekends to take off. Maybe Talladega because there’s not really much setting that goes into that one. That’s why I said I never could imagine going through that process again that I went through preparing for that one race.
How do you size up the ride that Tyler’s been on from the early season highs to kind of where they are now and his preparedness for the Chase?
It’s NASCAR racing at its finest. It’s the ups and downs and the peaks and the valleys that you have. I do think that they feel this is a great reset for them. They were bleeding points heavily over the last couple of months. And so if you’re them, you’re like, “Man, we’re right back in this thing. We’re, we’re less than 50 behind.” think that they feel like the schedule’s going to be very good for them. They’re going to probably Tyler’s best racetrack here in Darlington to kick off the Chase. I think that their confidence is bounced back due to nothing more than the schedule.”
Right before you won the Michigan race, it seemed like when they had that last restart, instead of charging in there, you waited to see what one and two did and then make your move. Are you a more calculating driver now than previously?
“For sure. It’s all about down and distance. I manage the races in the sense of understanding, how much time is left in this race and do I have enough time to get to the front? Now, that doesn’t bode well for leading laps, but it does bode well for getting the best possible finishing result that you can each Sunday. I’ve certainly been more methodical with how I approach races and how I manage them.”
Ryan Blaney has amassed a ton of stage points by winning stages. How do you expand your 25-point advantage?
“It’s going come down to first qualifying, then, then it’s the stages, right? So,there for a while during the summer when we had a lot of stage points, it’s ’cause we were qualifying really well. And I do think that we just went through what I believe was our roughest patch of tracks and we still have been really, really, good. So, if we can just keep our good finishes going, we’re going to continue to be good on the metric. We’re going to continue to qualify well. So I think it’s going to be all about the execution that happens the day before the race that’s going to lead to stage points.”
You said the last couple years that you didn’t feel like you needed a championship really to have left your mark at NASCAR. Going in this as the favorite, knowing this is probably going to be your best chance, do you still feel that way? What does a championship mean to you at this point?
“It would mean a lot personally, but it also if I quit today I’m still really happy with the stats we were able to put on the stat sheet and the wins that we’ve been able to get. It certainly would be very gratifying, but what matters to me is my dad saw me when I was at my absolute best, and that was at Phoenix last year.”
Knowing that you’ve been through the Chase in this format when anybody else, does that give you any sort of experience advantage?
I wish. Because the format’s just different. We have stages and more bonus points for winning now. It is different. The number probably half the guys that’ve been in the actual Chase, maybe less?
What is it like to have 70 straight days of pressure?
“I talked to 23XI about that and I addressed it in their meeting on Monday that this is a long way. You cannot get caught up in one bad week or one bad stage. This is a marathon. It’s almost a third of the season, so there’s plenty of time. I wanted the more. I want every race to matter, absolutely.”
Why could this year be different?
“I think that being a favorite in years past, you always know this thing is going to come down to a freaking green-white-checkered in the final race, and that’s how they’re going to decide a championship. I think now it’s like the bigger body of work typically bodes well for Denny Hamlin. It just always has. You give me more of a sample size, and we’re going to prove that we’re the best over a long period of time. I think that that’s what our fans need to focus on is that just this is a marathon, not a sprint.”
Is this your best chance?
“Uh, probably. There’s been years where we’ve been really fast versus the field, things like that, but I’ve always known it’s about that one race, and are you good at that one racetrack on a green-white-checkered finish, right? I think that it’s a little different this time around, so I’m starting a little bit ahead, not as much ahead as I should be. But I’m a little bit ahead and I’ve got enough races to prove that we’re the best.”
Do you remember the previous version of the Chase and the intensity of it?
“I do. I remember very early on there was only 10 of us on the stage and then it got bigger, and the family got bigger. I remember it and I certainly remember how we approached it as a race team. How you apply that to today’s format in terms of stages and stuff like that is a little bit different. But certainly, there’s some experience to be had there with myself and (Joey) Logano is the only one that’s been through it, to know that this is a long, long journey we’re about to go on.”
How competitive do you think the Chase this time time?
“I’m looking forward to seeing where we’re at five races in. And to think that five races in, that’s over a month from now, and we’re still just going to be halfway. I think everyone’s going to realize pretty quickly this is a lot different format than what we’ve had in the past. We’re going to see a lot of things that we think are huge moments, and they might be in retrospect when you look back. But we won’t know them until the season’s done in Homestead.”
Days of Thunder just announced that sequel. I’m just curious how much did you watch the movie? And are you going to be bucking for a cameo in any of the talks?
Well, like everyone else probably in this industry, if you hit the TV Guide and it’s on, you usually click on it. I thought it was the first kind of racing movie I got introduced to that actually depicted the lifestyle of racing. And it felt real to me back then. A lot of it was dramatized, of course, but it still was NASCAR. I’m really looking forward to kind of seeing how they depict that and the conversations and the things that Tom (Cruise) and Jerry Bruckheimer have said, you know, that they want to tell the story of NASCAR here in the second one. So I’m excited to see how it all turns out.”
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