The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing crew was all the heat at Darlington on Sunday. Their brilliant work to get Denny Hamlin on the track following the final caution made all the difference and put him in Victory Lane. The man at the helm of things in the pit was Chris Gayle. 2025 is Gayle’s first season with Hamlin as his crew chief. Before this, he was assigned to the young Ty Gibbs.
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After helping Gibbs win the 2022 Xfinity Series championship, he joined him in the Cup Series to lead the No. 54 crew in 2023 and 2024. Ahead of the ongoing season, he was repurposed to help Hamlin win his first Cup Series championship. Eight races into the season, Gayle has noticed some stark differences between working with Hamlin and Gibbs.
He told the press in Martinsville, “Even if you go before Ty Gibbs, I had Erik Jones, who was a rookie. Both of those instances, I’m going through it with them for the first time. They’ve never seen anything before there. I’m trying to be the guy who reminds them of every possible scenario that can happen, looking at the data with them and trying to get them up to speed.”
But this isn’t the case with Hamlin. The veteran has plenty of experience on the track, and there isn’t anything for Gayle to teach him. It’s just a matter of understanding each other better and producing results. The crew chief finds this completely liberating. He said that he doesn’t have to worry about things with Hamlin.
It is this confidence and the ability to lean on each other to a comfortable level that has led to consecutive wins in Martinsville and Darlington.
Hamlin’s advice to Gibbs after a string of poor performances
Because of the departure of Gayle or not, Gibbs hasn’t been performing well this season. It was only in Darlington that he secured his first top-10 finish (ninth place). In the first seven races, his best result was 13th in Martinsville. Being the natural leader in the Joe Gibbs Racing garage, Hamlin had been sought by Gibbs for advice before the Martinsville race.
The veteran had told him not to try to change things in a single week and that a comeback doesn’t work that way. Also, he had asked him not to race too hard when it was not absolutely necessary to do so. In his words to the youngster, “These races are really, really long… 30% of your competition will take themselves out every single week.”
“If you have a 12th-place car, you will finish eighth as long as you don’t screw up because others in front of you will. Keep that in mind.” One can only imagine, after the result at Darlington, that Gibbs has begun heeding the advice.
