By all accounts, Denny Hamlin has had a stellar career in NASCAR’s top flight even though he hasn’t won a championship yet with 49 wins to his name. However, the fact that he hasn’t had a championship is a sticking thorn in his legacy. Especially when you put it against his ex-teammate, Kyle Busch’s time at Joe Gibbs Racing.
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Busch joined later than Hamlin at Coach Gibbs’ organization and left with a better record. While Hamlin has won 49 races so far in his Cup career in 19 years with JGR, Busch won 56 races with two championships in 15 years on the same team.
So this begs the question, has there ever been a point when Hamlin doubted himself or when he was frustrated with his teammates’ successes? The answer is both yes, and no.
Denny Hamlin on the time he doubted himself when his teammates were succeeding
During a ‘Dear Denny’ section of his podcast show, Hamlin received a question about whether he got frustrated with the success of Christopher Bell from earlier this year, to which he replied, “No because I think we’ve ran as good as Christopher Bell. We just haven’t finished as good as Christopher Bell.”
Having said that, Hamlin pointed to the time when he was in a position where he did feel frustrated with his teammates’ successes in the past. “I’ve been in that position, absolutely, where Kyle Busch, when he first came in, Matt Kenseth, probably in 2013. I’ve had plenty of years when guys in the same equipment as me were outperforming me week-in, week-out, and absolutely, it is frustrating,” he revealed.
“I mean, it’s one thing when your whole organization is running in the teens and that’s kinda, you draw conclusions, that’s what all of our cars are capable of. When you got one that is out front or capable of winning and you’ve got the rest of them in the teens then yeah, it becomes like, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ For sure,” Hamlin described. “I definitely doubted myself in 2018 when it seems like I could qualify well but as soon as it dropped to green, I couldn’t get the 12th place fast enough.”
“Things changed in 2019 and we’ve been as fast, if not faster than anybody from that point on. At least got as many wins as anyone at that point … (Kyle) Larson might have one more than me now in this last four-year stretch, but I mean, it’s close.”
Kyle Busch made Hamlin a better driver
When Busch announced he’d be joining Richard Childress Racing in 2023, Hamlin paid a touching tribute to his soon-to-be former teammate about his influence on his own craft. “For me, personally, Kyle made me a better race car driver. That’s just the best way that I can sum it up,” Hamlin said.
He spoke about how he was always the short track guy at JGR while Busch was considered to be great on mile-and-a-half or two-mile racetracks. “We all had our niche. I think what we did was make each other better at all types of race tracks,” he added. Hamlin claimed he shared his knowledge of short tracks with Busch while the two-time Cup champ shared his about his own niche which ended up making the whole organization better.
For Hamlin to have had Busch as a teammate, he claimed, was something he remains “very grateful” for, adding, that a lot of his success is because of Kyle Busch.
