Hamlin and Gibbs: Tension in JGR after crash and expectations for Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Calm has returned to Joe Gibbs Racing after the incident between teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs, which occurred last week. Hamlin, who is in the playoffs and competing for his first Cup championship, had a run-in with Gibbs, grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, who is not eligible for the title. After the contact on the track, Hamlin questioned his team over the radio about whether they were afraid to give orders to the 22-year-old driver. Hamlin commented on Saturday, a day before the second race at Kansas Speedway, that all parties had the opportunity to express their opinions at the week’s competition meeting. The three-time Daytona 500 champion admitted that he got carried away and that “I definitely got too heated, and it was too far on my part.”

There are things I should have done differently.

Denny Hamlin

Christopher Bell, JGR teammate, stated that the message was clear and that it was not necessary to verbalize how Toyota drivers should race each other at this point in the 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 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

Meanwhile, Chase Briscoe, a JGR driver, achieved his seventh pole position of the year and will lead the grid on Sunday in Kansas. Briscoe and Hamlin will likely race cleanly at the start. Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson believes this is the right thing to do. Gibbs was racing aggressively against a title contender, who is also his teammate, at a point too early 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 for a teammate. But I think if you’re running in the middle of the pack in a stage, yes, that expectation should be followed.

Kyle Larson

Larson said that the expectations on how Hendrick’s drivers should race among themselves are clearly defined and are evident on the track every week. “I think you’re always looking at what you can do to make things a little easier for your teammates,” he added. Larson added that television probably doesn’t see the teamwork that happens, but that last week Alex Bowman gave him a lot of breaks at the end of the first stage. “He could have easily passed me again, but he stayed there. So it’s little things like that where I think Denny probably expected that, since 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 hope it’s much better.”