Everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing would have had their hearts in their mouth last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway when three JGR cars fought for the win over the last four laps. 

Denny Hamlin came out on top of the JGR battle to take his first win at Nashville. But while he was fighting off Christopher Bell, who in turn was fighting off Chase Briscoe, the tension on the pit wall was palpable, as Chris Gayle, Denny Hamlin’s crew chief, confirmed. 

“What we don’t want to do here is take all three cars out, and we wind up letting somebody else win it that hasn’t been involved in the race for the last thirty laps or whatever,” said Gayle on Sirius XM, ascertaining the worst possible outcome of the three-way JGR battle. 

But Gayle also indicated that there are conversations at JGR between the drivers to be prepared for such moments.

“Denny did a great job of respectfully racing. All those guys respectfully race each other when they had had previous conversations about how to race each other and what they thought was respectful from each other’s point of view.”

Hamlin was in second and came up on Christopher Bell after the restart and got into a position where he was able to pressure Bell to move up the track with every turn. Gayle was asked about how each driver's views are on respectful racing and whether they all think the same.

He replied, “I wouldn’t say that’s the same between all of them. They’ve definitely discussed it. And I think what happens is they kind of have their own set of conduct that they’ve talked about at least.”

The No. 11 crew chief added, “Whether one doesn’t agree with another one, they at least know how they’re going to get raced and how to treat that. I feel like those three guys have been pretty respectful in that, and that situation was unique, where I don’t know that any of them have any problems with how that played out.”

Could the same situation turn into a nightmare at JGR?

While everything turned out smoothly in Nashville, as Chris Gayle said, it could have ended up very differently for the JGR drivers. Christopher Bell was the key factor, having to choose whether to put pressure on Hamlin, who was slowing him down, or on Briscoe, who was catching up quickly. 

Bell chose to defend Briscoe and therefore settled for 2nd, but it looked like his race to win. While Ty Gibbs wasn’t involved in that battle, things with the JGR drivers in the standings may see a second round of a similar three-way battle turn out differently. 

Denny Hamlin currently leads the JGR pack, being second in the standings with two wins this season. Ty Gibbs is 5th, just 50 points ahead of Christopher Bell in 7th place. While Chase Briscoe sits 14th, he, too, isn’t a driver you can count out. 

All JGR cars have shown pace at some point, but Hamlin has been the most consistent, leading the most laps this season(756). Bell, who has been the favourite to win a couple of races, hasn’t had the results to show for his 398-lap lead.

With the Chase inching closer, at a point, it will be every JGR driver for themselves, and the next time the JGR cars are in a three-way battle for the lead, there is a possibility the result may be drastically different, with all drivers knowing the advantage heading into the Chase.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason