The opening round of the NASCAR playoffs was pretty much the Joe Gibbs Racing show. It all started with Chase Briscoe winning the first race at Darlington, followed by Denny Hamlin at the World Wide Technology Raceway and Christopher Bell at Bristol. Now, the Round of 12 has begun, and this time it is Ryan Blaney for Team Penske who triumphed at New Hampshire.
Needless to say, Hamlin is starting to get a little worried about his maiden title hopes. Quite recently, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Director of Competition, Chris Gabehart, admitted that the aero package and tires make Team Penske “untouchable”. What scares Hamlin is that New Hampshire and the Phoenix Raceway, which hosts the finale, have similar characteristics, meaning the race that took place at NHMS could also repeat itself at Phoenix.
Is Denny Hamlin throwing in the towel already?
On being asked if Gabehart’s “untouchable” claim is a red flag for everyone else, Denny Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast, “Probably should be. I think this is our Phoenix tire and I do know that this is the Phoenix aero package. Could be deja vu.” He also confirmed that the tire package was different from the one used at Gateway, where he won. The #11 driver also confessed that he is unsure about how his team picks the tire package for each race.
At this point, Hamlin’s only hope is that the Penske cars drop off early and don’t make the Championship 4. According to him, “If you’re not a Penske fan, that’s probably what you should hope.”
What’s probably scarier is that the next five races are relative unknowns. Hamlin confessed, “If we re-racked and ran tomorrow, we would have the same result. It will take an extensive overhauling of philosophy to get another 2% of grip out of our car. We’re not going to be able to tweak our way to the speed that the Penske cars have. If they carry that speed, we will not overcome that, if it correlates to Phoenix.”
In short, a lot has to go right in the next couple of races at Kansas and the Roval for Hamlin and team. He has won the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas in the past, as recently as 2023. This is his only hope because it is assumed that the Roval is probably going to end up being the Shane van Gisbergen show, being a road course.
The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran also broke down his friendly fire moment
At Loudon, Denny Hamlin committed the cardinal sin of motor racing: don’t crash your teammate. What happened was that Hamlin was battling with Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell for position. He and Bell were in Playoff contention, while Gibbs was not, so he likely expected Gibbs to play the team game. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and Gibbs fought tooth and nail for his position.
Everything culminated in Hamlin spinning Gibbs out, and Bell just about escaped getting caught up. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin explained his actions. He said, “I was pretty much there into Turn 1, and then he moved down to the middle lane to cut the nose off. If you cut across someone’s nose, especially if they’re running really close to you, it will make their car kind of lift up and take off. I think he was just trying to cut across my nose to make me lose air, just to aero block me. I was so close to him, I’m like, ‘Hell no. You’re not going to do that.’I tried to shove him up to the net lane to get my position. Unfortunately, it spun him out.”
Sadly, the incident meant that it was game over for Gibbs. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin was able to recover and ultimately finish in 12th place. The good news for Hamlin is that he is decently above the cutline for the Round of 12, sitting at 5th. However, a win by any playoff driver in the next two races could change that drastically.