“I’m coming here to win,” Denny Hamlin said in a media interview Saturday. “That strategy won’t change until things change during the race.”
Hamlin entered the playoffs as one in every of the title favorites, but questionable strategy and terrible luck left him six points below the cutoff. A final-lap crash at Atlanta after deciding to ride behind to avoid chaos and a first-lap crash at Watkins Glen left him with two more finishes within the mid-20s. The excellent news? He also won the last two Cup races at Bristol.
Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, FedEx Toyota Camry
Photo: Danny Hansen / NKP / Motorsport Images
Hamlin admitted it was frustrating, however the volatility of this round was expected given the additions of Atlanta and Watkins Glen to the round of 16.
“I think when we saw the way the tracks were being set up in the playoffs and so forth, and we knew that adding Atlanta was going to introduce some variability in the results that you can’t always predict but still have to execute,” he explained. “Obviously, you look at the top five and you look at the bottom five – that’s not something you can predict and that you couldn’t see for the first 27 or 28 races of the year, but now it’s a new game and you still have to go out there and perform, so it’s frustrating not to have the results – but today is a new opportunity.”
Fighting teammates
With several playoff upsets near the highest of the standings, Hamlin is one in every of three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers at risk of being eliminated on Saturday night. How will that change the dynamic when all of those teammates face off in Bristol?
“I'm not sure,” Hamlin admitted. “Probably a disadvantage, because we've had success here and they know what we had in our car to make it work so well, things like that. If they were on a different team, maybe you'd panic or start guessing – okay, we're not on pace – we've got to sell our car wholesale, and then you're going to end up falling short, but I think it's so tight that I think it's just going to be a matter of who gets through to who.”
“We hope everything works out for us, but if not, then obviously we have a couple of team cars – all our cars, there are three in that question mark – it would be great to have all three, but there is a chance we will get more than one.”
Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, FedEx Toyota Camry
Photo: John Harrelson / NKP / Motorsport Images
The JGR drivers began the race thoroughly. Although Hendrick went 1-2-3 in qualifying, Martin Truex Jr. finished fourth, Christopher Bell sixth and Hamlin eighth. Ty Gibbs, who enters Bristol on a bubble, is a bit further back in thirteenth.
Hamlin reiterated that he’ll attack from the beginning, a far cry from his conservative strategy that proved costly in Atlanta. “I’ll be on the attack, starting right away. I’ll be happy with the outcome — either way — because I know that after 500-plus laps here, everything will fall into place and we’ll have a chance to win.”
