Hamlin and Gibbs: Tension at JGR after on-track incident, Are there orders?

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Following an on-track incident between teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs, calm has returned to the Joe Gibbs Racing team. The altercation occurred last week, when Hamlin collided with Gibbs after the latter didn’t get out of his way in New Hampshire. Hamlin, who is competing in the playoffs in search of his first Cup Series championship, and Gibbs, grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, is not eligible for the title. After the contact, Hamlin questioned on the radio if the organization was afraid to give team orders to the 22-year-old young driver. Hamlin revealed on Saturday, a day before the race at Kansas Speedway, that all parties had the opportunity to express their opinions in this week’s competition meeting. The three-time Daytona 500 champion admitted that he got carried away, saying that “I definitely got too heated and went too far.”

There are things I should have done differently.

Denny Hamlin

JGR teammate Christopher Bell noted that the message was clear and that it was not necessary to say how Toyota drivers should compete with each other at this time of year. There are six races left to crown the Cup champion.

We shouldn’t crash into each other. That was very clear and obviously incorrect and hopefully it won’t happen again. I think it was already clear to us before, and we just need to respect each other.

Christopher Bell

Meanwhile, JGR driver Chase Briscoe secured 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, something that Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson believes, who has three of his four teammates still in the field of 12 drivers. Gibbs was racing too hard with a title contender who happens to be his teammate at too early a stage in last week’s race.

I think in 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 running mid-pack in a stage, yes, that expectation should be followed.

Kyle Larson

Larson said that the expectations on how Hendrick drivers should compete with each other are clearly defined and are evident on the track every week.

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

And he continued: “It could have easily happened to me again, 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.”