Denny Hamlin believes it’s simple in how he goes about trying to win the NASCAR Cup Series championship despite his organization suing the league.
“[You] just need to prepare the best you can and do the best you can on Sunday,” Hamlin said at Talladega Superspeedway. “It’s more of a question for my team and I would ask them, ‘Has your driver [ever] not been prepared?’ … Never.”
A joint antitrust lawsuit from 23XI Racing, the team Hamlin co-owns with Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk, was filed Wednesday morning in North Carolina. Not only does it take aim at the 2025 Charter Agreement, but alleges NASCAR and the France family have used anti-competitive practices, operate without transparency, have stifled the competition, and control the sport in an unfair way to others.
Hamlin is back behind the wheel of his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at Talladega trying to advance in the Cup Series playoffs. He is 11 points above the cutline.
“I certainly talked about it probably a year or so ago when it came down to this, and I became more comfortable with what the result was – no matter what, whether I win a championship or not, I’m going to make sure I can sleep at night knowing that I gave it my all for my team,” Hamlin continued. “Certainly, there’s been some circumstances over time that I haven’t been able to control, but [I can’t] let those situations affect me. This situation I can control and I give the team the proper preparation and make sure that when I get in the race car on Sunday, they know through my actions on the track that I’m 100 percent in it and focused.”
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Hamlin believes that was shown again this week. Although he already makes sure that any request about the car he drives will supersede everything else, he was walking the Charlotte Roval layout this week “hours before” the moment that’s since dominated the news cycle.
The reactions Hamlin’s heard about the lawsuit have been positive, he said. Jordan Fish, his fiancée, sent him a clip from the movie Moneyball where John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, said, “The first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody.” It’s because there is a threat to the status quo and someone’s livelihood, but that’s a reaction Hamlin doesn’t want to see because the lawsuit should be viewed as an opportunity to promote change in the sport that’s positive for all involved.
Regardless, Hamlin again finds himself at the center of the news cycle, having to operate in chaos, which he’s previously said he does well in. He didn’t deny this is a similar situation to some of those personal and professional incidents in the past.
“I’ve always been one of those that doesn’t want to be consumed with this 24 hours a day — the driving aspect,” Hamlin said. “I would be burnt out if I raced as much as Kyle Larson or Kyle Busch. That’s just not my style of coming out here and competing.
“Make no mistakes, the competitor in me, you don’t think I don’t want to come out here and win this weekend more than any? That’s what I fuel myself on … So, certainly, anyone who knows me personally will tell you that these moments you’ll typically get more out of Denny because I hate to lose and will not justify any excuses to losing…. But this isn’t a responsibility I’m taking all myself. We have a team that handles this now and they’re now speaking upon it and acting upon it. The work’s been done on my standpoint; you just let them do their work and things will work themselves out.”