NASCAR Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin is chasing his first Brickyard 400 victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished second at North Wilkesboro behind Joey Logano.
Hamlin, who drives the No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE, remains one of the top drivers without an oval win at Indianapolis.
Passing at the historic track is notoriously difficult.
“No, I’ve just been so focused on the week to week that, I haven’t really thought too much about the feature,” Hamlin said when asked about retirement plans.
“Obviously, JGR’s got good plans set in place and whatnot for that.
So, no, not really, haven’t put any more thought into or second thoughts or anything like that.
So, it just really riding the wave of week to week right now and continue trying to get more wins.”
Only three active drivers—Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, and Bubba Wallace—have previously won the Brickyard 400 on the oval layout.
“It’d be interesting to see, like, what other racetracks have similar stats like that,” Hamlin said.
“Ultimately, you have to have kind of everything, you have to have the downforce for the corner, so you have to have straightaway speed, so you need your engines, good for the straightaways.
You have a great team to call a great race for strategy. You’re going to need to qualify somewhat pretty well.
So I think just all aspects of your team have to be buttoned up when you come here.
There are not really any weaknesses and there’s probably four to five key components to a race team and their ability to win, and you had to have all five.
You can’t be missing one. You come out on the last pit stop, last fuel stop, fifth or sixth.
I mean, you’re cooked. You’re done at that point.
So you just kind of know where you stand and everything kind of plays out through the race and, yeah, the best always seem to get to the front.”
Setup Challenges and Strategy
The race demands a careful balance between cornering grip and top speed on the long straightaways.
“I don’t know, this is just so different from an intermediate standpoint,” Hamlin said. “Now it’s got high corner speeds, which you would consider intermediate.
But you also don’t know like what decisions teams make on the trim levels of their car, very similar to Pocono, things could, someone could just say, hey, you know what, I’m trimming out.
I want to qualify up front. That’s how we’re going to keep our track position.
So, I’m optimistic that, yeah, our speed should carry, but it’s not a given.”
Teams are also adapting to a revised 50-minute practice session before qualifying.
“I think it depends on the racetrack as to whether you make qualifying runs or where you make two race runs, how many miles do you want to put on the engine,” Hamlin said.
“I don’t foresee, like, it just kind of depends on the track, but I don’t think you’re going to see people jumping at the drop of the green flag to get on the racetrack for a full 50 minutes.
I think for everyone, it’s different. We saw last week, some teams ran two sets of tires.
Some did not. I just ran one.
It just depends on every team’s agenda and everyone will be different.”
Long-Term Commitment and Calculated Risks
Off the track, Hamlin continues building his legacy through co-ownership of 23XI Racing. “No, I’m not surprised,” he said.
“I think, certainly he’s gotten a lot of attention in the sport here in the last few months, and so certainly riding that high.
If you look at kind of his engagement rates, it is very, very high, so I’m not really surprised by that necessarily.
We started the race team to continue the legacy beyond driving. I knew that my racing career, the driving days were only going to be a certain time.
So, how can I be part of the sport after my last year? That was my best avenue to doing it.
So, it’s great that we’ve been able to make the changes that we’ve had and built this race team into championship contenders, and it’s exceeded really all the expectations that I’ve had for it in such a short amount of time.
It’s certainly an honor to be amongst a lot of sport greats.”
With limited opportunities left at Indianapolis, Hamlin is willing to take calculated risks for the win.
“Well, I would think, for me, it would probably be more desperate,” he said. “I’ve got a couple shots at this left, so I think more desperate.
I’m certainly willing to take a few more risks here, whether it be on restarts or whatever it might be, if it’s a strategy, something to give us a shot to win, simply because this is like the Daytona 500, I really don’t see this as a race where I count points.
I count, like, did you win or did you not? For me, I think that’s the most important thing.
Hopefully we have we have all the pieces in place to do that, but there’s only so many risks you can take.
If you’re 10 laps short on fuel, that’s a stupid risk. You’re not going to make it, right?
But if you’re a couple, then are you willing to make that risk?
I think that my team knows that that what I want them to do this weekend.”
Meanwhile, bubble driver Erik Jones faces a pivotal race to gain points, while Todd Gilliland enters with three consecutive top-20 finishes.
