KANSAS CITY, Kan. – After the incident between teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs, calm prevailed at Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin, who is in the playoffs and competing for his first Cup championship, and Gibbs, the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, were involved in a collision on the track. Hamlin, apparently, gave Gibbs a small bump. After the contact on the track, Hamlin asked his team radio if the organization was afraid to give orders to the 22-year-old.
Hamlin admitted that “there were things he should have done differently”. Christopher Bell, JGR teammate, said the message was clear and didn’t even need to be spoken about how Toyota drivers should race each other at this point in the year. There are six races left to crown the Cup champion.I definitely got too angry and went too far on my part.
Denny Hamlin
Meanwhile, JGR driver Chase Briscoe won his seventh pole of the year to lead the grid on Sunday in Kansas. He will start alongside Hamlin. Briscoe’s seven poles are the most in a single season since Kyle Busch in 2017. Briscoe and Hamlin will likely race cleanly at the start, which, according to Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson, who has three of his four teammates still in the group of 12 drivers, is the right thing to do. Gibbs raced too hard against a title contender who is also his teammate, too early in last week’s race.We shouldn’t crash into each other. That was very clear and blatantly wrong and I hope it doesn’t happen again. I think it was already clear to us before, and we just need to respect each other.
Christopher Bell
Larson said that the expectations of how Hendrick drivers should race among themselves are clearly defined and are evident on the track every week.I think at the end, if you’re competing for a win, you’re competing for a win. You’re never going to give up a win in the Cup Series for a teammate. But I think if you’re in the middle of a pack in a stage, yes, that expectation should be followed.
Kyle Larson
And he continued saying:I think you’re always looking for what you can do to make things a little easier on your teammates. Television probably doesn’t even see the teamwork that happens, but last week, Alex Bowman did me a lot of favors at the end of the first stage. I passed him and then I was dying.
Kyle Larson
He could have easily passed me, but he stayed there. So it’s little things like that where I think Denny probably expected that, as every team that has multiple cars has had a conversation about those expectations. So I could see Denny’s frustration, for sure. I’m sure they had a lot of conversations this week, so I would expect it to be much better.
Kyle Larson
