Denny Hamlin doesn’t think his results at World Wide Technology Raceway have reflected the potential of his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
That’s usually something a driver says when he doesn’t finish as well as he thinks he should.
Hamlin, however, is the defending winner of the Enjoy Illinois 300, which renews as the second Chase race on Sunday, September 13 at 3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. In each of the previous two seasons, Hamlin was runner-up in the Gateway event.
“Yeah, I can’t rely on the results alone,” said Hamlin said, who leads the Chase standings by 12 points over second-place Christopher Bell. “I think that when I dug into this race track this week, I think that while we won, (and) we finished second a few other years, I don’t know that we were that car on pace, right? I think we did a really good job executing.
“I had some fortunate breaks. I had some good restarts, and then you end up winning the race, and so I don’t think that we had that—we had race winning pace when it mattered, but I don’t think we’ve been as good as the results have shown. So, there was a lot to dig into this week and try to get better at and we’ll try to start that today and go practice.”
After the 50-minute practice, Hamlin’s inclination to downplay his results seemed well-founded. He was 30th-fastest in the session with a lap at 133.670 mph. He did show improvement in qualfiying and will start 10th Sunday.
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