“I’m Too Selfish” – Denny Hamlin Dissects Reason Behind His Anti-Hero Persona in NASCAR

Over the course of his long career, Denny Hamlin has had a few run-ins, a few feuds, and been a recipient of a lot of boos. In fact, a case could be made that Hamlin is the current most hated driver in NASCAR today courtesy of his several incidents with some of the most popular drivers in the sport, such as Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, and others.

His recent incident with Larson sticks out over the others considering he is good friends with the #5 driver.  However, the core reason for that, his image, is something Hamlin understands. He knows that he ends up having strained relationships with drivers on the track, regardless of whether he is friends with them off-track or not because he just wants to win that bad.

This was something he recently opened up on.

Denny Hamlin opens up on his tightrope walk act in NASCAR

In a recent interview with Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports, Hamlin touched upon his incident with Kyle Larson at Pocono this season. Hamlin wondered if that was something he’d call a feud because he is friends with Larson, as he raised an important question – “Is it different to have a battle or a little feud with somebody you know like Larson versus somebody like maybe Chase Elliott, who you don’t know as well?”

Hamlin believes it is.

“It always is difficult to navigate on-track stuff with people that you have off-the-track relationships with because your team doesn’t care about that. Your team doesn’t care that you guys went to dinner last night. They care, like, we just spent overtime hours getting this car ready, we’re giving it our all, we’ve trained two-a-days on pit stops, we’ve gotten better — are you going to give everything you can to win this race for us or not? And if you don’t, then it’s really, really hard to keep them behind you,” he explained.

Hamlin admits he isn’t a great teammate because of this

Because Hamlin understands how hard his team works, and because he wants to win so badly, he thinks one aspect of his role in the sport suffers. The #11 driver claimed that he thinks he is a good teammate, but he cannot be a great one. He’s never been one for a major reason.

“I’m too selfish,” he said. “I want to win for myself and my team too much. And sometimes that puts strains on relationships I have with friends off the track.”

But Hamlin also hopes that everyone understands that he is trying to do everything he can on any given weekend to win for his team simply because it means more to him to keep his team behind him than anyone else.