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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NASCAR Cup Series
World Wide Technology Raceway
Team Chevy Driver Quotes
September 12, 2026

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at World Wide Technology Raceway.

Media Availability Quotes:

Can you just reflect on the re-signing of Corey Day?

“Yeah, I thought that was good news, for sure. Obviously, I think everybody had questions of what was going to happen with his future after signing Connor (Zilisch). But yeah, just happy to know that Hendrick Motorsports sees a place for him in the organization down the road and is willing to continue on with him. It’s been great to see his growth in the stock car racing over the last couple of years. I feel like he’s grown a lot, both on the track and off, and still has a lot of room to go. So, yeah, it’s exciting stuff, and it was cool to be there for the re-signing and get to witness that. Just proud of him and thankful for Hendrick Motorsports.”

How much progress do you feel like Hendrick Motorsports has made here (at World Wide Technology Raceway) over the last couple of years?

“Yeah, well, I feel like last year we made a huge step. We didn’t get the finish that we necessarily deserved in a way, but I felt like we had maybe the fastest car in the race last year, where typically when we come here, our finishes are way better than where we run. Every year, except for last year, we’re a 25th-place car and somehow finish fourth with it. So, yeah, last year was fun to have a good practice, qualify well, lead laps and pass people. And then, yeah, ultimately I think we finished 12th, but I left more encouraged last year finishing 12th than I had when we had finished third or fourth, whatever the other finishes were.”

I’m guessing you’ve seen Brad Perez’s scheme this weekend? What do you think about that?

“Apparently I’m getting old (laughs). But yeah, that was pretty cool. I was just watching the practice. I didn’t know they were doing that. So, yeah, it looks like it’s identical as you can get to it, as well. That was neat. They showed some highlights there right before I came in here from my first win in Michigan, so that brought back some good memories. So, yeah, hopefully we see him have a good night.”

Last week, you were on the bad side of the qualifying metric when it got rained out, and that kind of cost you guys a chance, for as good as a car you had, of getting stage one points. So this might influence your answer, but when you’ve thought about the way they do that, do you think there’s a better way to do it, whether it’s a qualifying draw or it’s lining up the field by points if there’s a rain out? Any thoughts on that?

“Yeah, well I think the whole metric, if I’m not mistaken, came about during the COVID era when there was no qualifying. So I think it was a good way to shake the field up back then and try to make it fair where it wasn’t the same starting lineup every week based off points.

So, yeah, I mean, selfishly, after a weekend like last, I wish we would just go back to lining up off points because we don’t see the metric kind of come into play. I mean, you can have the metric to set the qualifying order, but I think, you know, just lining up the field based off points would be good, especially with the Chase, this point format and every point being so important. It was kind of crappy to feel like we were starting off at a disadvantage last week, and we raced our butts off to just miss stage one points.

But I mean, you can look at it both ways. We could have done better at Daytona to set ourselves up better for the starting position. I think I’m curious what other teams think, but I think setting the metric for qualifying order is okay. But I think if it rains out, I would say I’d be for going back to just starting off points.”

To your point about how valuable stage points are; I mean, we saw last week both Denny (Hamlin) and Justin (Allgaier) in their respective series, they did not have good results. But because they scored a lot of stage points, they preserved their championship lead. On one hand, that’s reflective of an entire race’s performance. On the other hand, some would argue that maybe the results should matter more. I don’t know where I stand on that, but where do you stand on that? Are stage points too valuable?

“Yeah, I don’t know. I think as the Chase has become a thing now — yeah, it’s like stage points are even that much more important than they were in the regular season. So, yeah, you could look at it from both sides and be okay or not okay with either way about it. But yeah, I think this format really rewards consistency. But I guess it rewards consistency throughout the whole race, where I think if we really wanted to get back to the authentic part of our sport that we used to have, I think going off of just finishes would be the most authentic way to crown a champion at the end of the year. And this is coming from somebody who is up there in stage points, as well, throughout the season. Without stage points, we would be further down. I don’t even know if we’d be in the Chase without stage points.

So, yeah, I think I’m open to it. And I don’t know if they would make a change or not while still having stages, but yeah, I think stages, they seem to just be crazy important, which it is what it is. But yeah, last week I was like — man, I had an awesome night. I finished second in the second stage, finished fifth in the race and gained six points, which is insane. So, yeah, it’s crazy. It’s like three races within one race.”

For Las Vegas, you’re taking on the role of ‘Tiny Kyle’, throwing it back to Kyle Busch. What do you think about that? How did that all come about? I’m assuming you’re going to be quite honored to be able to run that…

“Yeah, absolutely honored to be able to run his scheme. We were originally wanting to do the Bristol night race. But when Ty (Gibbs) and Joe Gibbs Racing came out with their scheme, I felt like it would be weird to have two Kyle Busch throwbacks at one event, so we pushed ours down the road.

Kyle (Busch) meant a lot to all of us, but especially me. I had a lot of fun battles with him. For him to have raced at Hendrick Motorsports in the No. 5 car, it was really important to me to try to be able to run that scheme. So, I asked Samantha (Busch) if we could do it, and she was all for it, and so was Hendrick Cars. So, thankful for that. And, yeah, hopefully we can go and have a good run in his hometown and try to get a win.”

I know you mentioned Darlington. But, I mean, you look out into three of the last four weeks, in general, for you guys, those were some tracks where you’ve struggled at over the past couple years. So do you feel like maybe the tide’s shifting? Are you guys starting to really click and find what you need at the most important time of the year?

“Well, I feel like our speed has been similar the last few months. You know, Darlington (Raceway) was definitely a gain, for sure, from where we’ve been the last two times there. I thought Darlington went as good as it normally does for us, outside of those two, where were able to pass cars easily, lead laps and have a shot at a win. But yeah, I mean, just based off the last few years, I thought it was a huge improvement, so that was good and definitely helps the confidence as we go forward.

And then looking at how we ran here last year compared to other years, I feel like we could hopefully get a good string of races here to start the Chase, if everything goes right. And, yeah, just keep fighting along. It’s a long few months, it seems, of the post-season, so it takes a lot of consistency, which is really hard to do in this era of racing. But yeah, I think our team is always capable of performing at a high level, and if we can get our cars to match, I think we can be dangerous.

But yeah, it’s hard to look at one weekend and say that it has turned around for us for the rest of the year, but we’ll see. I’m excited about practice and qualifying, and then hopefully, we have a good race.”

I know that you mentioned, obviously, the strides you made here last year, but more in particular, what are the biggest challenges, I guess you could say, when it comes to this racetrack, considering track position is very important and weather difference, as well?

“Yeah, I think just speaking on where I felt like we’ve struggled here before, was that I just always felt so on edge. Like I could not touch the throttle without feeling like I’m just going to twitch. And, yeah, I can’t carry any pace on entry. We got to test here last year and went through a lot of different packages. I can’t remember who was here with us, but maybe (Brad) Keselowski and somebody else who I thought were pretty good here in other races, so w had a good gauge off of them. And yeah, we showed up and was really fast and did all those things better. So, yeah, hopefully that’s going to translate to this aero and horsepower package. But, you know, that’s still yet to be seen until we get out there.”

How much of a nuisance is it when you have your fellow competitors, you know, potentially teasing or flirting with the idea of intentional contact, especially at this time of the year? Obviously, I’m talking about the 6 and the 77. Depending on timing, you know, you can’t really time when they potentially do something about it, and then you end up collateral damage in what could be intentional contact that they’ve been discussing over the last few weeks?

“I have no thought on that, really. Obviously, if Brad (Keselowski) is around him, I would keep my eyes peeled a little bit more. But more just like when you’re behind it, you’re like hoping something cool happens (laughs) and you don’t get caught up in it. But, yeah, it’d be funny.”

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