Hamlin Shifts Focus to Brickyard after New Hampshire Win Relieves Pressure
July 18, 2017 | By Paul Kelly, Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The agonizing wait is over for Denny Hamlin.
Last year, Hamlin only needed to wait until the season was about three hours old before earning a spot in the NASCAR playoffs with his victory in the season-opening Daytona 500.
This year, half of the 36-race season was over, and Hamlin was winless. The clock was ticking with just eight races remaining in the regular season before the playoffs started. Pressure was mounting.
But Hamlin broke through with his long-awaited first victory of the season in the No. 18 FedEx Toyota fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing, holding off Kyle Larson by .509 of a second to win the Overton’s 301 on Sunday, July 16 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
“We were positioning ourselves pretty good in the regular season points to try to get in the playoffs, but obviously this is a bonus to lock yourself in, kind of gives you that sense of security if you do have a bad day or two between now and the playoffs,” Hamlin said. “But we're trying to work our way up in the regular season standings as high as you can. You get bonus points the higher up you are, so really that's the whole point of this whole stage format is that it creates no off weekends.
“We've been treating every week as if it's a playoff race, and giving it all we've got. We've been steadily getting better as the summer has gone on, and we need to continue to stay on that trend of getting better.”
The next stop for Hamlin and the rest of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400 on Sunday, July 21 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And if history is any indication, Hamlin could continue his summer surge at IMS.
Hamlin won the pole in 2012 at the Brickyard and has finished third, fifth and fourth in the last three years at IMS, respectively. Plus his team, Joe Gibbs Racing, has won this race five times, second only to Hendrick Motorsports’ nine victories in the 23-year history of the race. JGR has won the race the last two years with Kyle Busch.
“As a race team we've been pretty successful there over the last few years,” Hamlin said. “Kyle has won it two years in a row. We tested there and felt like we had a package that was pretty comfortable, so we'll kind of lean on that.
“I look forward to it. It's one of the biggest events that we have all year is going to Indy. You know everyone when they go there, they bring the best of the best – the best motors, best cars, and so it's kind of a showcase for the teams as much as it is for the drivers.”
Busch finds himself in a similar situation entering Indianapolis that Hamlin was entering New Hampshire. He’s winless in 2017 in the Cup Series, with his last win coming in the 2016 Brickyard 400. Busch is coping with growing pressure even though he’s third in the Monster Energy Cup Series points and probably will earn a spot in the playoffs even if he doesn’t win before the postseason starts.
“I think Kyle, he's had a chance to win maybe eight times,” JGR owner Joe Gibbs said. “So I think the encouraging thing there, and I heard him say it in an interview today, is he feels like we're fast. We have the ability to win. He said, ‘That's a lot better than being in a situation where you're running 10th,’ I think is what he said. I think he feels like each and every weekend he's got a chance.”
The New Hampshire race was another symbol of the resurgent JGR team. Besides Hamlin’s victory, Matt Kenseth finished fourth, rookie Daniel Suarez finished a career-best sixth, and Busch led 95 laps and won the second stage of the race before two pit-road speeding penalties contributed to a disappointing 12th-place finish.
One of JGR’s toughest competitors at Indianapolis figures to be Furniture Row Racing. The Colorado-based team fields Toyotas for series points leader and stage points leader Martin Truex Jr. and promising rookie Erik Jones, who will replace Kenseth next season at JGR.
Furniture Row is a fierce foe but also a sister team to JGR, which provides extensive technical assistance to Furniture Row. That formal alliance has helped Truex win three races and produce 13 top-10 finishes in 19 starts.
Both Hamlin and crew chief Michael Wheeler admitted to moments of frustration losing to a team that JGR helps. But both also acknowledge that competition forces them to push harder.
“There's moments of frustration, but you've also got to look at it as they're setting the bar each and every week for speed,” Hamlin said. “It's making me become better, so regardless of what goes on with the cars and whether they're the same or exact same or not the exact same, I know that (Truex) is doing things inside the car that's making him better, and I'm able to see that now through data, and it's making me better.
“I don't have any animosity toward those guys whatsoever. They're teaching us a lesson most weeks. But we're going to school on it. We're continuing to get better. I feel like we've closed the gap a little bit. But overall, we are one Toyota team.
“It's important that we all run well, and on weeks where they dominate, it's up to us to look at the notes and look at the video and look at the data and say, ‘How can we get there?’ I'm relatively pretty proud of what that team has accomplished so far this year.”
The Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400 will start at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 23, featuring all of the stars of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Visit IMS.com to purchase tickets for all 2017 IMS events, including the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400 and Lilly Diabetes 250 on July 21-23, and for more information on all events.