While there was due diligence throughout the process, Denny Hamlin never tried to hide the ball regarding his desire to remain at Joe Gibbs Racing and intends to spend the rest of his NASCAR Cup Series driving career behind the wheel of the No. 11 Toyota.
Thus, in signing an extension with Gibbs, Hamlin is now considering the possibility that this could be his final contract and there is a lot of emotion that comes with signing those sheets of paper.
Most notably, Hamlin is still seeking that elusive Cup Series championship and knows there is less time ahead of him to accomplish that goal than time behind him. But these next couple of seasons, however long it lasts, is one last shot to win the Brickyard 400 too or a fourth Daytona 500.
Really, this contract is just about remaining competitive past his 43rd birthday in November and all the things that come with that.
“I don’t know if this is the last one or not, but I know how many more (years) that (the contract lasts) for sure but that doesn’t mean that it’s over at that point,” Hamlin said during a media scrum on Saturday at Kansas Speedway. “There is still an opportunity to go beyond that as long as I know I’m competitive at a high level.
“I think people like Kevin Harvick (47) are an anomaly being that fast and that competitive that late in his career. That is going to be really, really hard to do. I don’t think the runway is that long, but certainly it is capable of being one more beyond this one, but that is all pending.”
Hamlin says ‘you just never know,’ because both the circumstances of his team being competitive and his physical peak are both unpredictable things. But for now, he never wanted to leave the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 because it’s the only car he has ever driven at the highest level and there are only a handful of teams that are legitimate championship threats from the start of a season.
“I’ve always wanted to end my career in one car,” Hamlin said. “That’s still the goal, and knowing they give me the best opportunity to win a championship is something you don’t want to take for granted because there are only so many championship-caliber race teams out there, and they are certainly one of them.”
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His crew chief, Chris Gabehart, has kept a running tally of truly race-winning opportunities since they were first paired together in 2019.
“Last week marked our 59th race-winning capability weekend,” Hamlin said. “We haven’t won nearly that many — 59 times. That is a lot since 2019. When we look at why we haven’t, I feel comfortable saying I’m doing all I can do (but) sometimes these things are just out of our hands.”
That was certainly the case last weekend in the Southern 500 when Hamlin swept the first two stages but a loose lug nut trapped him a lap down and in position to be caught up in a crash ahead of him.
“What happened – on the video – it takes a while to get high-res video, but the socket is turning, turning, turning and it never stopped,” Hamlin said of the tire changer’s gun action. “The left rear is one of the most sensitive corners.
“If it was the left front, we probably could have gotten away with it, no problem. It is just the way that track works. It’s the most sensitive corner on the car. When it’s not all the way tight, you are going to feel it dramatically and it would continue to just back off to that safety clip and then it would have damaged the hub so bad, that we wouldn’t have been able to get a tire on.”
Having a Southern 500 slip between his fingers is something that still stings but having a car that good, and virtually having 60 of them over the past five years is why Hamlin always intended to stay with Gibbs and Toyota.
Hamlin would not verify the length of the agreement or even if the deal with Gibbs coincides with 23XI Racing’s deal with Toyota. Hamlin co-owns 23XI Racing with his friend Michael Jordan and employs drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick.
Wallace’s spotter, Freddie Kraft, never truly saw a scenario where Hamlin would leave. Hamlin did meet with Ford at Michigan last month, but again, it was due diligence.
“Right now, JGR and 23XI are essentially the same,” Kraft said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. “I guess we could be second-tier, but we run the same car and same stuff. If we go to Ford. Penske is always going to be the top dog at Ford, then RFK is probably the No. 2 team right now. So you go over there and you find yourself in the mix of being the 3rd or 4th Ford team versus being the top Toyota team basically. I’m very happy we’re staying at Toyota.”
So maybe the agreement for 23XI runs through Hamlin’s contract and maybe it doesn’t, but Hamlin is just happy that his immediate future, and the potential for winning races and championships will be as strong as the circumstances allow.
Hamlin really wants that championship and he wants to race at a championship level as long as he is an active competitor.
“I want to compete at a high level in my final year,” Hamlin said. “I don’t want to kind of trickle off. I’m way too competitive to do it. There is no way I could go to the race track not knowing that I could win. I understand there will be a day when things fall off. Things get slower for you.
“You will never know when that day will come, but now, that I’ve been doing it so long – it definitely puts some urgency in years like that, where I have all of the things, I need to compete each and every week. This could be one of the best shots we’ve had to win it all. You really put an emphasis on it knowing there is only so many total races left. If you want to get to your personal goals, you’ve got to capitalize on every single weekend.”
And that means Gibbs and the No. 11 car.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.