New crew chief, same winning ways for Denny Hamlin

Halfway through his first year with crew chief Chris Gayle, Denny Hamlin has shown no drop-off in performance compared to last season with Chris Gabehart.

Hamlin admitted last November that he was “shocked” when Joe Gibbs Racing moved Gabehart — who had been Hamlin’s crew chief for six seasons — to competition director. The change was made to help the company, which went winless the final 18 races of last season. Joe Gibbs Racing then paired Hamlin with Gayle.

Through the first half of this season, Hamlin has three wins, eight top-five finishes and nine top 10s.

At this time a year ago, Hamlin had three wins, seven top-five finishes and eight top 10s.

Hamlin is fourth in points this season — despite missing a race for the birth of his son. A year ago, Hamlin was third in points. Hamlin has scored 19 playoff points this season — the same total he had at the midpoint of last year.

In an era where the competition is tight, to have a crew chief change not slow a driver’s performance as the two learn to work together is a credit to the foundation Gabehart built, the work Hamlin does and the ability of Gayle to give Hamlin what he needs.

Chase Briscoe was just one of the many key changes ahead of this season, joining Joe Gibbs Racing.

The challenge for Hamlin last November was that as he entered the latter part of his Cup career, he was going to do so with a new crew chief. He and Gayle had to build a foundation quickly so Hamlin could excel on track.

It meant some extra work for Hamlin.

“Someone of my age, I think the easy answer would say, well, you’re an old dog, you’re not going to learn new tricks, you’re not going to want to listen to anyone to tell you to do it differently,” Hamlin said last November of the challenge of a new crew chief relationship.

“But I’ve made it very clear to Chris Gayle that I do not want you treating me with kid gloves. You need to tell me when I need to improve in something or there’s an area that I’m weak in as a driver. I need that feedback. I think that as long as he’s comfortable with that, we’re going to have a successful relationship because I’m very self-aware and I need someone to hold me accountable to be the best out there.”

Stock cars return to the streets of downtown Chicago for the third consecutive year.

The process has worked but work remains.

“Do I feel like myself and Denny have even come close to reaching the peak of the relationship? No,” Gayle told NBC Sports last weekend at Atlanta. “I feel like there’s some me still growing into that position.

“I think that Denny has done a great job of fully trusting me to ‘(his) role is driving the car and (my) role is handling whatever happens to the car. But I think there’s some communication stuff between us that can still be better from my end that you kind of grow and learn as you go along, like, oh if I had to do this over again, I should have communicated this, or we should have talked about this behind the scenes so we didn’t have to communicate it then.

“I think that’s still building, but I think that overall, the results have been good. I think that the results being good allows you to continue building the other stuff that not everybody sees without any sort of major panic or paranoia coming on that gets you behind.”

Shane van Gisbergen won in Mexico in the most recent Cup road course race.

One of the things Gayle said he has had to adjust is decision-making. Hamlin is a championship contender. Gayle had spent his previous years as a Cup crew chief working with younger drivers. He had a different mindset on calls for those drivers. His focus was on points because the wins were not as plentiful.

Gayle points to Las Vegas, the season’s fifth race, as an example of how he needed to change his thinking with Hamlin as his driver.

Hamlin was 14th when he pitted with the field under caution at Lap 189 of the 267-lap race. Hamlin restarted 13th. He was up to fourth on Lap 214 and was in that spot when he pitted under green at Lap 231 — splitting the final 79 laps since he couldn’t make it to the finish on fuel.

Few used that strategy. A caution at Lap 244 left Hamlin trapped a lap down behind most of the field. They pitted during that caution while Hamlin waved around to get back on the lead lap, restarting deep in the field.

Hamlin finished 25th.

Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott led the way in June.

“If it had gone green (to the finish), that would have been the best strategy to get the best finish for the day,” Gayle said of the call to split the remaining laps.

“But if you talk about floors and ceilings (in reference to lows and highs in the running order), for given finish positions vs. worst-case, best-case … our ceiling was going to be sixth or seventh our floor 14th.

“Denny would have rather had a shot to win at this point in his career, even though at that point he didn’t have wins, so keep the ceiling as high as possible longer even though now the floor may be 21st because he doesn’t care about a 14th vs. a 21st.

“Those were some conversations that if I’m running with rookies and I’ve to accrue every point because I don’t know when win is coming, you take a different approach. We needed to sit down after that race and have those conversations and some was just me not thinking about it from the point of view of a guy who expects to win a lot, is going to be in (the playoffs) on wins, how can I give him more opportunities at wins? A 15th or 21st isn’t going to make a difference.”

Lesson learned and the team has won three of the last 12 races.

“I don’t think we’ve been in a situation that went exactly similar to (Las Vegas),” Gayle said, “but I’ve definitely been much more aggressive at making calls.”