Raging NASCAR superstar Denny Hamlin sends brutal message to Joe Gibbs Racing

Joe Gibbs Racing went from dominating NASCAR’s Cup Series playoffs to imploding in the space of a few short hours at New Hampshire on Sunday.

The all-conquering team had won all three races in the Round of 16, but all of that success was a distant memory after what went down in the Mobil 1 301.

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At the center of it all was the great Denny Hamlin, who finished a disappointing 12th - trailing home behind his fellow title-chasing teammates Christopher Bell (6th) and Chase Briscoe (10th).

The biggest flashpoint of the day came when Hamlin wrecked teammate Ty Gibbs (who is also the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs) after a sustained battle between the pair.

Hamlin was vocal on team radio during the race, clearly dumbfounded at why a teammate who is not in the playoffs was racing him so hard. “What the f*** is he doing?” summed it all up.

The 59-time Cup Series race winner was still unhappy the next day as he recorded the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast. He provided a detailed debrief on the entire incident, and it will make uncomfortable reading for the higher ups at JGR.

Denny Hamlin felt 'wronged'

Hamlin claimed: “We were racing really too hard, in my mind what was entirely too hard.

“I know this is going to trigger some people about ‘oh racing too hard’. When you’re racing a team-mate, a) a teammate and b) a teammate with nothing to gain. I agree that everyone should race to win the race, however we’re not racing to win the race. We’re racing at the time for 11th place.

“We’re battling - me, the 20 [Bell], the 19 [Briscoe] - we’re all battling and scratching and clawing to get some stage points which is gonna be life or death for us. It’s our air that we need to move on.

“I felt a little bit wronged, in the sense of my teammate out of the playoffs should not be the hardest car on the track to pass. I mean for God sakes Ross Chastain let me by - he’s on the cutline but even in the first stage like I pressured him and I pressured him and more than like what he thought was that ‘well I’m not gonna hold him up for this entire 60-lap run. I might as well get back in line, try and keep it from somebody else joining this party and passing me along with you’.”

Mixed messages at Joe Gibbs Racing?

Hamlin says he feels there are mixed messages within the team right now, or at least that is what the racing on track suggests.

“This is the racecraft that I feel like is missing, that understanding the situation and I felt as though this thing is hard enough to win anyway. But if you’re gonna have to race your teammates harder than anyone on the racetrack then this will be really tough for any one of us to win.

“I don’t think we’re on the same page. I have always went back to what was the last thing Joe said about playoff cars and non-playoff cars. He’s had this conversation multiple times with everyone in the room. But I think it probably needs to be said again.

“What I’ve heard is that if you’re a non-playoff car, any break that you can cut your teammates, please do.”

By the time Hamlin and Gibbs started to really battle, Ty had already provided some problems for another title-chasing teammate in the shape of Christopher Bell.

“And so I probably got a little upset, a little hot under the collar, because first of all I was a witness to the 54 and the 20 thing,” Denny admitted.

“I was right there behind it, watching it, shaking my head. It was just tough to watch.

“Then, when you listen to Ty’s audio, he got really upset about the 20 car at that point. And I think whoever got to him next, he was gonna be difficult too. And unfortunately, I was the next guy in line to pass him.

“Me and the 20 were fighting so hard to get around the 54 that we ended up fighting each other. Then finally when we got singled out we both ran him down, again. And I’m thinking ‘I’m just gonna go on by, I’m clearly faster’ and it was just aero block this corner, aero block that corner and then when you get beside ‘okay what else do I have to prove that we’re clearly faster, I’m definitely going to pass you, we’ve got 60 laps to the end of this stage, what are we doing? You’re not gonna hold me off for 60 laps. The 20 is right behind me, these are your teammates that need these points’. I just didn’t understand where the mindset was there, and I still don’t.

“It’s possible Ty feels like he doesn’t owe us anything, and that’s just a different mindset, and it’s okay to have but you would think that if one day the roles would be reversed, then certainly he probably would be upset if we did not let him go and the roles were reversed and he was fighting to move onto the next round.”

What Hamlin wants JGR to do next

So clearly all is not well in the JGR shop right now, but what needs to happen next to fix this? Hamlin was brutally clear about what he wants.

“What I want to happen is leadership to step in and tell us what do you want us to do. If you want us to all just race each other cutthroat, no matter what your position is and your stature in the standings, we can definitely do that.

“I expect myself and the 19 and the 20 to race really really hard. Because we’re all battling each other to get above this cutline, or maintain our status above the cutline.

“If I get eliminated or the 19 gets eliminated or the 20 gets eliminated and then we’ve established this ‘no rules, you guys just do whatever you wanna do’, none of us are gonna win.”

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