“I Expect Us All to Race”: Denny Hamlin Details On-Track Teammate Dynamics Between JGR Drivers

Teammates might play a big role in helping certain drivers win but the occurrence of such instances is rare. In motorsports, one has to look out for themselves first. That’s exactly what Denny Hamlin expects out of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. On an episode of his podcast, the 43-year-old driver explained the dynamic among teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Fans saw the competition among JGR teammates at Richmond earlier this year. Martin Truex Jr. was not happy with how the #11 raced him as he felt he was used up by his teammate. On his podcast, Hamlin admitted to putting his teammates wide in certain races to help his chances of winning. He would not expect anything different from them either.

“When it comes to teammates, I don’t really expect anything,” he said. “I expect us all to race each other. There have been many times I put my teammates three wides on restarts because that’s the move I need to make in that given moment for myself and I would expect the same from them.”

These comments echo his sentiments from a year ago when he spoke about racing against drivers in 23XI Racing. Hamlin is co-owner of that team but sometimes he found himself battling against his drivers on track. The 43-year-old had said even back then that he expected to be raced in such scenarios. JGR and 23XI are separate teams and every driver races for themselves first.

“I understand it both ways. The 45 (Reddick) and the 11 – if we are racing each other – and he knocks me out of the way, it would be hard for me to say you shouldn’t have done that because he’s racing and the other way around,” he had said as per NBC.

That doesn’t mean there is no teamwork involved at all. At the beginning of the Pocono race, Hamlin and Truex did help each other out for a while. There have been several instances of drivers aiding their teammates in contention for the Cup Series title in the last race of the season. If a driver has not made it to the playoffs, a teammate can help them out in that scenario as well. That is of course given if they have made it into the final 16. NASCAR is quite a nuanced sport when it comes to these matters.