Denny Hamlin is 21 years into his NASCAR Cup Series career and currently in the hottest form of his life, in search of an elusive championship.

While Hamlin looks to break the jinx, having gotten close but never winning the Cup series title, his Joe Gibbs Racing crew chief, Chris Gayle, revealed what’s working for the No. 11 JGR driver and how they plan to keep it going. 

Gayle was in conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and TJ Majors on a Wednesday's episode of the "Dale Jr Download". When asked by Majors whether 2026 could be Hamlin's championship year and what approach the team is taking towards making that happen, Gayle replied:

“I don't think there needs to be a different approach. I’m of the opinion we can look forward and talk about all kinds of possibilities and how we should do this. I take it one race at a time. That is what got us to this point. One win at a time, one race at a time, one practice session.”

The No. 11 crew chief admitted that the change in format helps Denny Hamlin’s consistency, giving him a better chance at the title at the end, but he also pointed to the mentality of the No. 11 team, which is optimize, optimize, and optimize.

“How do we just optimise the next one? How do we do that better? I think that has served us well in the short span that I’ve been as crew chief, and I don’t see a reason to change that to this point now,” Gayle added.

Denny Hamlin has won the last three races in Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono. According to Gayle, what Hamlin and his team are aiming to do is one of the most cliched yet the hardest things to do.

Things have clicked for Hamlin ever since Gayle came on board as his crew chief back in 2024. The duo has impressively secured 10 wins in 51 races together.

Gayle on What Would Work for Denny Hamlin in San Diego

NASCAR will take over the Coronado Naval Base this weekend for a first of its kind race at an active military base. The 3.40-mile track is nearly a mile longer than Watkins Glen, making it the longest race track in NASCAR.

The track has several tricky, tight corners, perfect for creating chaos. Denny Hamlin’s crew chief hinted along exactly those lines as to why he expects Hamlin to have a strong result there. 

“I think it’s going to be complete chaos," said Gayle. "I think the track’s going to get blocked. I think there’s a lot of stuff like that. And I think that Denny is very aware of ‘Ok, I probably don’t have the outright speed to go beat Tyler Reddick here. But what I can do is avoid trouble all day.’”

In the aforementioned podcast, Gayle also brought up an interesting stat: Denny Hamlin is one of three drivers with more wins than DNFs (four versus zero) in 2026. Tyler Reddick has five wins and one DNF, while Carson Hocevar is the other with his Talladega win and no DNFs.

The stat proves that Hamlin is good at avoiding chaos, and in two races that should be defined by chaos, if the No. 11 JGR driver avoids incidents, then he should have decent results as the team’s aim for San Diego and Sonoma is “to not bleed points.”

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Yash Kotak