Denny Hamlin isn’t one to hold back when sharing his opinions. The veteran driver has now issued a warning to Spire Motorsports about its growing reliance on its alliance partner.

Hendrick Motorsports joined forces with Spire Motorsports through a technical alliance that they signed in 2023. The technical alliance allows drivers and crew to jump from their current team to the affiliated team. This is exactly what has been happening at Spire Motorsports.

On his ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast, Hamlin spoke about the tough choice Spire has to make to reach its full potential. “One of the teams got some pit crew issues, and that’s always going to be a challenge if you rely on Hendrick that much." 

Hamlin further added that the alliance may lead to the team losing some of its top crew members.

“You know they are going to put the best guys on their cars, and they're going to constantly take your guys as they see that pit crew starts being really, really good, they're going to take guys, and they’re going to put them on their house car. So that's the issue of being the little brother, that it could potentially lower your ceiling a little bit.”

A similar situation to what the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is speaking about happened in September 2025. During the playoff race at Bristol, Hendrick swapped Alex Bowman’s pit crew with Carson Hocevar.

This warning from the 23XI co-owner holds some credibility as he understands building a team from scratch and also how the teams function.

While warning Spire about being the subordinate, Hamlin also praised their driver for winning the Coca-Cola 600. 

Denny Hamlin praises Daniel Suarez after Coca-Cola 600 win

During the iconic race at Charlotte, Daniel Suarez took home the win. This victory has pushed him into the top 10 in the Cup Series drivers' championship standings. This put a 62-point gap between him and the playoff cutoff. 

While talking about Suarez’s win in the aforementioned podcast, Hamlin spoke about how the No. 7 Spire driver has been extracting the most from his car. “If you’re one of their teams, one of the bubble teams, like the 7 team has been most of the year, nights like last night are like a hell yeah.”

“Especially in this format. It gives you some breathing room. Tenth in points after 13 races is nothing to sneeze about, either. That’s as high as Daniel’s been in points, maybe ever, after 13. I’m not sure. Feels like it.” 

Daniel Suarez got Spire their second victory of the season. They have now closed the gap with HMS. It will be interesting to see if Spire will take into consideration Hamlin’s warning to keep getting wins. 

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Ankita Yadav