NASCAR CUP SERIES: FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400

June 7, 2026

Denny Hamlin

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by tonight's winner of the NASCAR Cup Series race here at Michigan International Speedway, Denny Hamlin.

Q. Carson seemed to think that maybe if he hadn't gotten side by side with Daniel, at least maybe there would be a chance, if he put you in dirty air longer, that they could hold you off?

DENNY HAMLIN: Okay.

Q. You think you were going to pass them pretty soon anyway?

DENNY HAMLIN: I think we were pretty strong at the end, no doubt.

Q. Obviously it seemed for a while, like you were in the 20s, and you actually fell back a little bit. Early in the race, you didn't really have the car that you seemed to have at the end. Is that just a difference between being in traffic and being in clean air, or did you make adjustments that got it better by the end to be able to do what you did?

DENNY HAMLIN: Both, yeah. Like last week, we did not -- we don't have a magic setup to run really fast when we're 30th. It's made to be out front and in clean air.

Yeah, we were not good, not good at all. But once the track -- there was one big adjustment we made that really helped the car, and then from that point on, then the track just kept coming to us.

Like we try to plan for the end of these races to be strong at the very, very end. So the track coming to us and great adjustments, we took a 30th place car at the beginning and won with it.

So it was a combination of both, and we never panicked. Over the radio, it was just matter of fact. Here's what it is, here's what we got, and I need you to fix this, I need you to fix that. I mentioned a few times, if I get clean air, I'm going to need one thing. If we're going to have traffic, I need another.

But it's amazing how different a car can run being in 30th versus first. I look at the lap times, and I was running 39 flat. It's like almost two seconds off from what we ran at the end of the race. It's just your car's not set up to run two seconds off. It's very counterintuitive. It actually has less grip at that speed than it does when you're running as hard as you can.

I knew that it was not realistic. Once the speed came to us, the car was going to continue to get better, and it did.

Q. So that win now puts you first among all active drivers with wins at Michigan. You also now have 21 top 10 finishes at this track. What have you been able to find at this track to stay so consistent year after year?

DENNY HAMLIN: I've been blessed to have really fast cars, for one. But just kind of learning, and I really kind of studied today, this morning, I really studied the 45. He started in the back last year, and I wanted to watch his first 20 laps, 30 laps to see how he navigated traffic.

So I knew I was going to have my hands full, but I just -- I don't know, I constantly study some different things to try to get better and we chip away at it. I never really panic at any point of the race anymore.

Starting sixth here with 40 to go inside the last fuel run, it's like, yeah, I feel pretty confident we're still going to win. It's just we're at that point where we show up to the racetrack and it's like the confidence is just higher than it's ever been.

Q. Are you better right now, you feel like, than you were in 2010, 2019, 2020, some of your best seasons? Do you feel like you were more equipped and capable?

DENNY HAMLIN: Uh-huh.

Q. And why?

DENNY HAMLIN: Just experience. I was talking to Ty Gibbs before the race, and he was like how many starts do you have? Probably 40, 30-something, 40. He's like, man, I'm at the point now where I feel like I'm pretty -- I know what I need. I know what I'm looking for. And I said, yeah, imagine having four times as many starts as you have.

Like that's the advantage I have every single week is that he feels comfortable where he's at, but just add another 15 years of experience, and you just, you know the transitions of the track and like what happens when it gets cloudy, what happens when it gets sunny, what happens when the wind is this direction, that direction, all those things you just learn over time. It's why we have the upper hand right now.

Q. I asked you this at the All-Star race, but then when Coach Gibbs -- about retirement. Then when Coach Gibbs comes in here and says he would sign you to a five-year deal --

DENNY HAMLIN: He's lying.

(Laughter.)

Q. It begs the question, is there anything you could see out of yourself the rest of this year and maybe early next year to go I would not leave more on the table in '28 if I did come back? Is there a certain threshold that you could cross over?

DENNY HAMLIN: I think if -- and that's a big if -- like I'm at this point and this fast at this point next year, it would be a tough, tough decision. That's not saying that I would, but it would be a tough decision because, again, I'm planning for the downfall that I know will come.

I always say there's like three things that happen. You're going to lose your eyesight, then you lose -- in no particular order, it's your eyesight, your reaction, and then your body hurts. I've already got the body hurts part of it, right? It's just the other two things have remained really sharp.

Yeah, I don't know. It was certainly a goal to get to 63 or -4 as of a couple years ago, or a year ago, because I knew that would put me by myself in ninth. I ain't getting to eighth, so what am I doing? You know what I mean? I'm content. If I quit tomorrow, I swear I will feel no more gratified than if I go out there and win 72 races before I -- it makes no difference.

Nobody cares. You'll be forgotten within six months of when you're not here. I might as well just enjoy life while I'm still somewhat young and be able to be there a little bit more for the kids and what they're doing.

Q. You won by 11.11 seconds today. Once you took the lead, were you holding back anything, or were you just like all out?

DENNY HAMLIN: I wanted to go as hard as I could. I just wanted to make a statement on the last run, and I wanted to keep myself in rhythm. This is a track where rhythm matters. The minute you kind of just check up -- some tracks you can check up, save your stuff for a green and white checkered or whatever, this is a momentum track. The minute you start backing off and not running 100 percent, your car will start biassing, doing something that it shouldn't be because, again, like I talked about, it's not meant to be run at 3/4 speed, it's meant to be run at 100.

So I wanted to have a no mercy run and just see what happens.

Q. Next week you could go for a new personal record by winning three consecutive NASCAR Cup Series races for the first time in your career. Finished second there, last year Pocono after winning the pole. Your thoughts on Pocono?

DENNY HAMLIN: It would be hard, but there's no better opportunity than I've had at any point in my career to win Pocono. You're going to one of my best tracks. Cars are obviously fast. Me and my team have it going right now. We know what we need every week. Our communication is great. They know exactly to what level to fix things when I ask for it.

So now's as good an opportunity as ever.

Q. Obviously some thought had to go into what you were going to do when you tied. Also, can you tell us about what went into making the flag, the design, the hat, whatever? What was the thinking there?

DENNY HAMLIN: It started Monday morning. I mean, at that -- right after the race, it was like, okay, it's something we probably ought to get on because we might win next week, right? So we wanted to be prepared for that.

Then I'm thinking do I put the 8? I know him as the 18. I don't know the right thing, right? Then this person owns this font. That person owns this trademark. It's like we had to have some collaboration, and I appreciate RCR letting us use the stylized 8 with the Joe Gibbs Racing the 1. It was just a happy balance that I felt good about when it all came out.

NASCAR community has kind of just been through it over the last -- certainly the last few weeks, but then just generally in the last six, eight months. It's been tough. I just wanted to pay my respects to someone that I really did look up to and taught me so much as a teammate. There's nothing we can say or do that's going to make his family feel better, but at least during that little time, you can pay him the respects that he deserves.

Q. He probably would have been so pissed today?

DENNY HAMLIN: He would have been pissed today, absolutely, but I would have said to him, you'll be around here longer. You'll get me back.

Q. Denny, you talked a little bit yesterday about the points situation and wound up getting stage points in stage two, and Tyler had his misfortune too. This puts you at minus 51 to the lead. How do you feel you're positioned now to keep making gains like this and make a bid for the regular season championship?

DENNY HAMLIN: Listen, I knew the only way we ever could catch him is he was going to have to have bad luck. I said it weeks ago. He had bad luck today. We were in the same wreck. We were turned around backwards. Luckily, no one hit us in turn one. Our car wasn't very good, and we just, we overcame it.

It's like, you know, I think it's still going to have to -- he's going to stretch it out at San Diego, Sonoma. I still think he's in a really good place, but like if we keep doing this, it will be -- it will keep them interesting and honest for sure.

Q. Obviously we're all still in shock about Kyle Busch, but in your post race, you also gave a nod to Ned Jarrett, who was, I think you called him, the original badass in the 11 car. Have you basically studied the history of that car and all 243 wins now and made that connection?

DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, if you listen to MJ, he'll say that Cale's the original 11, but if you know the sport and know the history, you'll know that Ned is the one that came on the scene, and it was like, you know, the guy showed up, he won. Didn't he win a race by four or five laps or something like that?

Q. 14 laps.

DENNY HAMLIN: 14 laps, come on. Yeah, over the years, built a relationship with Dale Jarrett, and when I found out that his father passed, sent him a message, we're thinking of him and Glenn and his whole family.

But he was, Ned to me was the first one with the 11 that was like the guy just showed up and won, and to have the discipline, or for whatever reason choosing not to run full schedules or whatever, he still was just amazing coming out here. When he showed up, Richard Petty and those guys had to be thinking, oh, man, we have to beat this guy.

Just got a tremendous respect for his whole family. As a kid, I grew up knowing Ned as a broadcaster, like that's how I got introduced to Ned. I just will never forget that voice, him and BP and all them. That's how my introduction into the past started.

Again, very much like the Busch family, you just try to do your best to pay your respects to them in a difficult time for the family.

Q. There's a record number of cautions today, including the one that you got caught up in. How would you describe kind of what it was like today and why it was so chaotic?

DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I think the restarts were chaotic because of the pushes. Down the front stretch, you really had to push hard to get your line moving, and all it took was someone zigged, the other one zagged, and next thing you know, you made contact.

That, and it was tough to pass. It was definitely short of the first two corners. I mean, it's definitely easier if your car is good than like Nashville, but it's still a track position track, like we talked about.

When I was 30th, I was stuck in 30th, couldn't really do much. People know that, and so they're just more aggressive those first couple laps after restart, and that's where you saw all the incidents come from is just that first initial lunge after the restart and everyone fighting for the same space.

Q. Chris Lambert told me in Victory Lane that he really believes that you and Kyle made each other better, that you pushed each other, that you were more analytical and relied on data, he drove by the seat of his pants, but together you two made JGR stronger. Is that a fair assessment?

DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, and you never really know until -- like I got to switch cars with him at a few tests. Then JGR did a very interesting experiment while they had one car, they had me and Joey and Kyle all run the same car 50 laps at Martinsville, and they graphed it all out to allow us to learn from each other.

Like you would expect, Kyle was the fastest at the beginning of the run. Joey was the fastest at the middle of the run, and I was at the fastest in the long run. So you just kind of learned, once we had that data, it was like, okay, so you can -- what's the fastest ET -- like whose run was the fastest? Then you learn from that, and everyone started refining it, and I think that's when Kyle started going on a nice little tear on the short tracks, he learned from it.

The same thing happened to me when I got to get in his car. There was two times, one at an Indy test, one was at a Chicagoland test, and I was just, I couldn't believe it. I was like how -- I can't believe he makes speed with this and this is the avenue he sent his team down. I know it works. I know that he'll probably come out here and dominate the race. So I need to make my car drive like this from now on.

That's when I changed how I drive on mile-and-a-halfs, and now it's my strong suit.

Q. Today's margin of victory was the largest in the Next Gen 7 era. I was wondering if that meant anything to you.

DENNY HAMLIN: Not really. Not really. I was just afraid of one of those Kyle Busch cautions at the end (laughter). That and a flat left rear.

Q. With you being so open about how much Kyle meant to you personally and your career, where does tying him today rank amongst -- for yourself personally, where does it rank amongst all of your wins and everything you've done through your career?

DENNY HAMLIN: It's a special one, no doubt about it, special for a lot of reasons. Back to front again, back to back week to week, back to back season to season here at this track. So it's super special from that standpoint.

Then there was a buildup. I knew that flag was sitting in the pit box area. I knew the hat was waiting for the moment. So it's -- you know, I don't know why, but over the last few weeks, like I get nervous when I know that like we have a really, really good shot at winning.

And I didn't know until -- I didn't have very much faith the first 50, but just as we started chipping away -- and there was wrecks. Again, call it out, there was some wrecks that took out some really strong contenders. That was helpful. But I just, I feel it. So it's just there's been some buildup. I've been getting nervous race mornings a little bit because, man, this is going to be a great shot to win.

Then I knew -- I'm thinking that whole last run, are they going to have it at the pit box? Are they going to bring it to me? I'm just thinking about all these things that really don't matter, but I'm also very nervous that, like, man, I don't want to lose this one.

It's a good time because it's not far removed, right? If I would have tied him like a year from now, I think that -- I don't know that it has as much recognition as what it would be because it's been so soon.

So it just, it means a lot more than many of the other wins just because of all those things that I mentioned.