“I would think that Ty would want one of us to win a championship. His name’s on the building.”
Playoff drivers Denny Hamlin was being held up by non-playoff driver and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs. After several laps, Hamlin had enough.
As Gibbs shut off the air to Hamlin’s nose. Hamlin decided to use his bumper. He sent Gibbs spinning into the wall.
It ended the day for Gibbs. “Game on,” Gibbs stated over the team radio.
Denny Hamlin crashes teammate Ty Gibbs at New Hampshire (Video)
“Those guys are the ones driving the cars, so … those guys will get together on their own and figure it out,” Joe Gibbs stated.
“What I want to happen is leadership (to) step in and tell us, what do you want us to do?” Denny Hamlin stated via the Actions Detrimental podcast.
“If you want us all to just race each other cut-throat, no matter what your position is in the stature of the standings, we can definitely do that. Like I expect myself and the 19 [Briscoe] and the 20 [Bell] to race really, really hard because we’re all battling each other to get above this cutline or maintain our status above the cutline.”
“If I get eliminated or the 19 gets eliminated or the 20 gets eliminated, and then we’ve established this ‘no rules — you guys just do whatever you wanna do,’ none of us are going to win.”
“He has had this conversation multiple times with everyone in the room, but I think it probably needs to be said again,” Hamlin added. “And so what I’ve heard is that if you’re a non-playoff car, any break that you can cut your teammates, please do.”
Joe Gibbs noted that the drivers would work it out. However, Hamlin is looking for team leadership to step in.
“The challenge is that I think me and Ty are going to have different opinions,” Hamlin said.
“Therefore, you need leadership to step in and say, ‘Well, this is how we want it done.’ And then we will play by those rules. Whatever those rules are, I will play by those rules. But I have been told in the past, if you’re not in it, you do everything you can to help your teammates that are in.”
New Hampshire Race Results: September 21, 2025 (NASCAR Cup)
“Me, the 20, the 19 — we’re all battling and scratching and clawing to try to get some stage points, which is going to be life or death for us,” Hamlin said.
“It’s our air that we need to move on. I felt as though — a little bit wronged in the sense of my teammate out of the playoffs should not be the hardest car on the track to pass. I mean, for God’s sake, Ross Chastain let me by.”
“If there’s anyone that probably — he’s on the cutline. But even in the first stage, I pressured him and pressured him, and more than likely, what he thought was ‘I’m not going to hold him up for this entire 60-lap run. I might as well just get back in line, try to keep it from someone else joining this party and passing me along with you.’ “
“This is the race-craft that I feel like is missing — that understanding (of) the situation. And certainly I felt as though this thing is hard enough to win anyway. But if you’re gonna have to race your teammates harder than anyone on the race track, then this will be really, really tough for any one of us to win.”
“Well, it was twofold because I was pretty much there into Turn 1, and then he moved down to the middle lane to cut the nose off to make me get really tight,” Hamlin said.
“If you cut someone’s nose, especially if they’re running really close to you, it’ll make their car kind of lift up and take off. So I think he was just trying to cross my nose to make me lose air just to further aero-block me.”
“And I was so close to him that I’m like, ‘Hell no. You’re not gonna do that.’ So yeah, I tried to shove him up to the next lane to get my position, and I unfortunately spun him out.”
“It’s just too difficult to win naturally, much less if we’re going have the ‘everyone just races for themselves and it doesn’t matter whether you’re racing for a championship or not. And from my standpoint, I would think that Ty would want one of us to win a championship. His name’s on the building.”
Denny Hamlin has advice for Ty Gibbs on Joey Logano
Denny Hamlin | Ty Gibbs | New Hampshire Motor Speedway | NASCAR
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