“Mistakes are intolerable”: a JGR veteran reveals the secret of Denny Hamlin’s return to winning ways

At 43 years old, Denny Hamlin is perhaps the only veteran driver this season who looks like a real championship contender. While drivers like Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. have done well, they simply haven’t reached the levels that the No. 11 team has achieved in 2024. What’s more impressive is that Hamlin has been able to adapt to racing trends of the next generation.

It’s not all his doing, though. The brains behind Denny Hamlin’s resurgence this season must be credited to his crew chief, Chris Gabehart. While his team has been quite competitive in every race, Gabehart is aware of how quickly things can get ugly in the Gen 7 era of NASCAR racing. The past three weeks certainly haven’t gone as planned for the #11 team, but he believes they are on the right track.

Hamlin and his team take nothing for granted.

With three wins in the bag and a playoff spot secured, the team could have easily taken the foot off the gas and taken a backseat. Rather, Gabehart and his team decided to stay focused and try to keep the streak of good results alive. It was because of this mentality that Hamlin was on a top-5 streak before the Sonoma engine debacle. With a streak of three races without finishing in first place, it seems that the team has lost its winning touch. But Chris Gabehart has a quite different perspective on this.

Clarifying his team’s recent run of below-par results, Gabehart, via the Happy Hour podcast, said: “I’ve never dealt with conditions like this, where for the first 220 laps it was X and the last 80 laps it was Y. But the bottom line is we’re executing at a really high level. The same thing happened in Iowa, once we got over a really unstable first stage. “I was really proud of how our team bounced back and before we got destroyed we were moving up to sixth place with a chance to be in the top five.”

While he is well aware of the challenges his team will face with the new-generation car, he highlights how an event not under his direct control could hamper their good run. “But as you mentioned in the Gen 7 era, now more than ever mistakes simply cannot be tolerated.“For the driver, for the team and for the circumstances on the track. Maybe it’s not your fault, but if you get dragged into it, it’s very difficult to recover from. So I think we are right where we need to be and we are capable of having really good days.” Gabehart further added.

To be fair, the engine blowout certainly put the team out of contention for points at Sonoma. At New Hampshire, they simply couldn’t adapt to the rain tyres despite running well in the dry, so these two races were examples of how circumstances can get in the way of your plans. The only argument that could be made was in favour of the Iowa race, where Denny Hamlin simply lost his touch and managed a P24 finish.

So even though they are running well, they still have work to do. However, while Hamlin has had difficulty competing in wet conditions or in road course racing, Gabehart still feels it is best to compete to his strengths.

There’s no time for experimentation at this stage of Hamlin’s career.

Although Hamlin has been around NASCAR racing for quite some time, the racing itself has evolved from what he used to know. The wet-weather tire race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was the perfect example of how he struggles to keep up with these innovations. If you look at last Sunday’s race, Kyle Larson, who finished fourth, and winner Christopher Bell certainly had the edge over the rest, thanks to their experience in drag racing and dirt.

However, Gabehart feels that given the limited amount of time Hamlin has in his career, he can make the most of it by playing to his strengths on ovals and short tracks. “At this stage of your career, with all the other things you have going on. The little time you have left for your family and your business, is that the smartest use of your time? Probably not, as opposed to taking us away from our strengths, and that’s the bulk of the schedule.”

It would be strange to see Hamlin get into a sprint car or a midget car. Therefore, it is undoubtedly better for him to improve his technique with the stock car. And since he’s shown a lot of promise this year, who knows? He could very well end up lifting the championship trophy at the end of the season.