TOYOTA RACING – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
WINSTON-SALEM, NC (Feb. 4, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Wednesday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium.
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Bob’s Discount Furniture Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How are you doing after everything that has happened this offseason?
“I’m doing good. It’s hard to believe I’m going to be in the Clash in a couple of hours. I’ll have some rust. Didn’t get much of an offseason, obviously. No vacations, no fun stuff, anything like that. Just back on it now. I think getting back in a racing certainly will just put me back into a routine more like I’m used to.”
How have you handled this roller coaster you’ve been on the past few months?
“Everyday is a new challenge. Certainly priorities definitely shifted in the offseason, just doing non racing stuff. I’ve had a day at the race shop since Phoenix. It’s just going to take a little while to get back into the swing of things. I’ve been doing my work the last twenty something years and this is a kind of a good warm up to that. Certainly has not been an easy offseason by any means. I’m sure I’m in a different headspace than most of the competitors that have been rip roaring ready to go racing the last month or so. I’m probably in a different spot than that. I would appreciate a few more months, but I don’t have that but we’ll just kind of see how it goes. Got some unfortunate news that I re-tore my shoulder that I had from 2024. I’m going to go into the season the way I was before there. I don’t think that it ever healed properly, there were just some issues. Kind of a little after the season it was nagging me a bit and took a little fall at my mom’s house going through all the rubble and stuff. It didn’t feel right and got it scanned and they said it had re-tore again.”
Is surgery an option at this point with the season starting?
“I could, the option was just do it now and miss the first three or four months, or just tough it out and do it the first day of the offseason and that’s what I’ll do.”
Can you give us any update on how your Mom is doing?
“She’s getting better. She’s actually down in Florida with some family this week. She’s definitely getting better physically and mentally certainly will take some time. She’s getting in a better place.”
Sounds like you were a key voice in the playoff format changes. Are you satisfied with the changes?
“I am. Seems like the bulk of the offseason was from what I could see, was NASCAR undoing some of the direction they had gone the last decade or so, which are all good things. I feel like the Chase is a very good compromise for all the stakeholders and I certainly feel like if anything, it’s a benefit for your top competitors who are the challengers week in and week out. It will reward them during the regular season and reward them in the playoffs giving them a little bit of a head start. Certainly more of a head start of what the Chase had back years ago. So while it is the old Chase, you actually have more motivation to perform well in the regular season because of the gap it will give you to start that 10 races a little more than previous. I do feel like it’s a really good balance of everything. Without a doubt there will be no question of the validity when we come down to the end and we see who is first. While it can come down to one last restart at the end of Homestead, it’s still going to be a body of work you put in over the first nine and-a-half races up to that point. I don’t think any one restart will define it even though it might determine who the champion might be, it’s still going to be the two or three most deserving guys when it comes down to that final race. I’m certainly happy to see where it ended up and I’m in full support of it.”
What do you want to see this year from Riley Herbst to show he’s taken a step forward in his growth?
“We got to see better performance, for sure. Where the 35 was running last year was not up to what we expect. We signed a multiyear agreement with Riley because we want to see where it goes in the second year. I want to see gain in performance and needs to be challenging into the top-10 and top-15. That’s where we expect our cars to run. The more experienced guys in Tyler (Reddick) and Bubba (Wallace), they need to be competing for race wins more often as well.”
How do you expect JGR will fill the void with Chris Gabehart no longer there?
“It’s a little different. I’m used to having Chris (Gabehart) there. But we also have the experience of Wally Brown that’s been in that role as competition director in many of the heyday years of JGR and their performance. I think he can step in there and do the role. He never left, he was always in those competition meetings so he can just kind of pick up that quarterback role. I think that he got to observe some things that Chris Gabehart did last year that he can refine. Even he admittedly said that I think that was a good direction and pick up from where he left off. So I’m confident that JGR can have so much depth within the race team that they can find a way to make it work.”
Charlotte Motor announced they are moving away from the Roval and back to the Oval for their fall weekend. How do you feel about the change and that there will now not be a road course in the Chase?
“I don’t think it’s a secret that it’s all positive from me on these types of changes. Bigger sample size, less road courses, given my history, so those are all positive for me. But beyond myself, we need to talk about the sport and the racing in the NextGen car, especially the mile and-a-half tracks, have been it’s strength. I was part of that battle with (Ross) Chastain and (William) Byron in the 600 and just a fantastic race that nobody could hold the lead. You get out in the lead and your car would handle terribly, but when you were in second, it was actually better. That racetrack is too good of track. If you have any track that’s going to have multiple races at the same venue, same track, Charlotte would be one that you would think would be at the top of the list. Good to see that come back. I think it’s going to be on the fans to make sure you show up and support that. I think the drivers for the most part are certainly supportive of the change back to the oval. It’s what we are, we are oval racing. I definitely appreciate the changes we made over the last few years in the road courses and the different venues like Charlotte or the Chicago Street Race, which I thought was a positive for our sport. We look like we’re heading back to more of our roots, which is a I think a good thing.”
Can you talk about the importance of having the Clash here at Bowman Gray Stadium?
“I can just tell you why it’s good for the teams. One, it’s a good warm up for them to get their race weekend routine going. It’s close to home, so there’s not a big haul travel wise for the race teams. For the drivers like myself, I don’t think I would like to barrel it off at Kansas right now into the turn 1 for the first laps of a new season. Short track is good for the drivers and is a good warm up. This is a racetrack that is embedded in the NASCAR roots with making the move here. We were doing the short track thing in LA and I thought that was very good event, it’s more feasible and economically viable for the teams to be here close to home on a very similar racetrack. You are also kind of giving back to the short track community up here in Winston.”
What does your timeline look like getting back to the gym and into the SIM to get ready for the season?
“I wish I could predict the future and tell you, but I just don’t know. I certainly give my team the preparation that they deserve as the leader of the team. There’s no way I could actually show up this week and face my team and not be prepared, so I’ve done as much as I can to be prepared given the amount of time that I got and given all the stuff I have going on. But they know once I get in that car, they never have questioned that I’m capable of going out there and competing and giving them their best opportunity to win. That’s ultimately my job is to get the result that the team that’s been preparing all offseason while I’ve been doing other things is give them a shot to reap the benefits and rewards of their hard work.”
How do you feel about the leadership change within NASCAR with Steve O’Donnell at the top?
“I don’t know too much of the ins and outs of it as far as how does the role change for O’Donnell as opposed to what it was before. We’ve only had one team owners council meeting. I overall, left there feeling the direction and vision they got for this upcoming season is good. I’m certainly a believer in the direction they are going. Ultimately, the results will be shown by our TV numbers and our people in the stands, if it resonates with them or not. Overall, I feel as though the sport got a good reset point at the end of last year and now we are going into this year the team owners are in a better position for the long term than where they’ve ever been before. So now it’s just a matter of can we get this sport back into prominent relevance in the sports market, and I think that’s their focus as well.”
Can the relationship between the industry and NASCAR improve moving forward?
“Yeah, hopefully. That’s the goal. We all use it as a reset, we need to think more holistically and trying to make it better as opposed to maybe criticizing this and that. Holistically, are we heading in the right direction? One moment might not be exactly how we want it, but is it generally heading the right way. I think that’s the way we need to look at it. Like I said, I’ve looked at the inner strategy of NASCAR of what they put out to us to get back to where we were, and I think it’s the right strategy. This is not going to be something that we’re going to see right away, it’s something that could take time within the garage. The proof will be in the pudding that the sport and the teams have said they wanted to do for the last decade. While it is more collaborative or was more collaborative than it was in the 1990’s, it’s still nowhere nearly as collaborative as other sports are. When I talk to Curtis Polk and many others that have been in other sports and even other owners who have had interest in other sports, their ownership meetings are totally different. They are all figuring out, how are we going to create more revenue? Here’s what we are thinking about doing. Where us, we’re just so cutthroat on what’s best for our team and this team doesn’t like this splitter and this team doesn’t like this transaxle. It’s all dumb stuff that gets talked about that doesn’t push the sport forward. We have to talk about things that are going to grow the sport collectively and everyone has to get on that same page. Hopefully that starts January 1 of this year.”
In the past you’ve had trouble lifting your shoulder. Is it about the same as it was in the past?
“I don’t right now. If you can look into a crystal ball, as the year goes on it just kind depends on making sure I’m doing the things out of the car. Keeping the range good and keeping the strength good to kind of get to that November date where I can work on it and get it fixed again. It’s limiting the things I like to do and that’s not going to be a priority during the season, unfortunately. I’m going to miss out on a lot of the fun things, but I can’t do some things I like to do simply because that aggravates it and it causes the tear to get worse. It’s kind of hanging on currently, but still has a few parts and pieces hanging on that I need to keep intact for the full year.”
Has your perspective on life changed since the last race in Phoenix last year until now?
“Yeah, I think certainly it’s different. The easy thing for me to say is poor me, but I still have a fantastic life, a great family. A lot of people go through tragedies. A lot of people go through what happened. What happened to me in the offseason was highly publicized, but there’s probably tons of stories that have happened to other crew members that happened this offseason and during the season that nobody knows about. Everyone has their times where they have to go through tough moments. I think those are building moments for your character and how your respond to it. This season for me could go one of two ways and I think not much of a middle road. It’s going really one way or really the other way. It’s up to me which was I decided to turn. Right now my focus is keeping this thing on the right track and spending these last couple of years accomplishing everything that I want to before my career is over.”
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