Ty Gibbs came away from Sonoma with 54 points and is currently the best he has ever been in the Cup series. 

Being the grandson of Joe Gibbs, the nepotism tag has always surrounded him, and his early years in the Cup series didn’t really help the picture Ty Gibbs was painting for himself. But with his first career win in the bag and being 4th in the standings, the JGR 54 driver is finally coming good, and his JGR teammate Denny Hamlin sees it.

Hamlin got candid about the form that this teammate has been showing, and as the championship leader, finally gave his youngest teammate his flowers. Hamlin shared his thoughts on how Gibbs has improved through the years.

Speaking on his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin said, “His finishing positions aren’t as volatile as what they were in years past, and really, years past he had more bad finishes than good. That definitely has changed this year to where there’s more good than bad… It's like he’s definitely the biggest gainer year over year in performance. 

Hamlin, who took the championship lead over Tyler Reddick for the first time this season, cut down a deficit of over 120 points in around 6 weeks. Ty Gibbs in 4th is currently 139 points off his JGR teammate.

With eight races to go this season and the 54 JGR Toyota driver showing unreal consistency, it wouldn’t be a surprise to consider Ty Gibbs a genuine contender for the title. 

The 23-year-old will believe it’s long overdue, but his consistency is proof that sometimes it's about gaining performance over the long stretch, which Hamlin indicated. 

While Gibbs pushes on to catch Hamlin, the 11 JGR driver was all praise for another teammate of his.

Christopher Bell on a strong recovery course

While Denny Hamlin ended his race in 26th after contact on lap 64 that sent him spinning down the pack, each of his JGR teammates ended with a top 5 finish. While he spoke about Gibbs’ consistency and also spoke about Chase Briscoe’s chase of SVG towards the end, another teammate left Hamlin awestruck. 

Christopher Bell had a massive crash in Michigan, which NASCAR recorded as the highest-impact incident in terms of G-force. Bell was left with a fractured wrist and struggles to drive in San Diego. 

Hamlin felt it would be the same for Bell in Sonoma as well, but was left pleasantly surprised by Bell’s performance. On the same podcast episode, he said:

“Really impressive. I knew he was good when he got to- I don’t know where I was in the middle stage, 5th or 6th, and he got clear; he got close to me. I pulled back away a little bit in the long run, but I knew he was good at that point.”

Hamlin revealed, “I think that after I heard how much difficulty he has at San Diego, shifting, steering, and all that stuff, I had my doubts on whether he was going to do it here at Sonoma, but very, very, very impressive run by him and his team."

While all of Hamlin’s teammates managed top five finishes, the entire JGR shop will be happy that the lowest JGR driver is currently Chase Briscoe in 11th. This would help JGR play all their cards when the Chase comes around. 

Who do you think is Hamlin’s biggest challenger amongst his teammates? Let us know.

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Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason