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DOVER, DELAWARE – MAY 16: Bubba Wallace, driver of the #23 McDonald’s Toyota, and Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Office Toyota, talk on the grid during the NASCAR Cup Series Drydene 400 at Dover International Speedway on May 16, 2021 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
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DOVER, DELAWARE – MAY 16: Bubba Wallace, driver of the #23 McDonald’s Toyota, and Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Office Toyota, talk on the grid during the NASCAR Cup Series Drydene 400 at Dover International Speedway on May 16, 2021 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
2025 was a turbulent season for 23XI Racing. Ranging from a mind-boggling NASCAR lawsuit to murky clouds hovering over its future, the team went through a lot of adversity. This was topped by a year-long struggle on the racetrack for some drivers. In 2026, the team is turning over a new leaf – with a resolved lawsuit, permanent charters, and most importantly for Denny Hamlin, loftier goals for the Cup Series season.
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Denny Hamlin goes into a war footing
“Well, we got to see better performance for sure. I think that certainly you know where the 35 was running last year was just not up to what we had expected. But we have signed a multi-year agreement with Riley because we want to see where it goes in the second year. And certainly I want to see, you know, gains in performance, it needs to be challenging inside the you know top 10, top 15,” Denny Hamlin said in a press briefing at Bowman Gray Stadium.
Riley Herbst signed with 23XI Racing at the end of 2024. Both Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan gave him a vote of confidence after a feisty Xfinity Series run. However, the results did not live up to the hype in 2025. Herbst closed his rookie Cup campaign with eight top-20 finishes, no top-10 results, and a 35th-place ranking in the 2025 Cup Series standings.
On the other hand, Bubba Wallace had a fairly good season, as he won the prestigious Brickyard 400 race. He was consistent with 14 top tens and 6 top fives, but he could not go deeper into the playoffs with an 11th place in points. Tyler Reddick bizarrely passed the year with no race wins after a Championship 4 entry in 2024. So Denny Hamlin expects every 23XI Racing driver to be on a war footing.
“We expect our cars to run, and certainly the more experienced guys and Tyler and Bubba, you know, they need to be competing for race wins more often as well,” Denny Hamlin continued.
Riley Herbst himself is also looking forward to a clean slate. “Man, it was really difficult,” said the Nevada native. “But it was good to get that year under my belt and get all the experience and the laps. The rookie year is difficult. We learned a lot, and hopefully we can expand and have a better year this year. Some races were good, and a lot of races were bad. There were just a lot of learning races.”
With a whole season’s worth of learning behind him, Riley Herbst will try to prove himself in 2026. And his team owner himself has a lot to learn and move on from 2025.
Recovering from distress
23XI Racing certainly has a lot to learn from 2025. But beyond his team’s fortunes, Denny Hamlin’s personal life took a heavy toll in the past season. Heartbreak visited the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran first at Phoenix Raceway, where Hamlin narrowly missed winning the championship for his ailing father. Then, just three weeks after 23XI settled the NASCAR lawsuit favorably, Hamlin’s father tragically passed away in a house blaze.
Amidst this darkness, Denny Hamlin is somehow managing the return to the racetrack.
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“It’s just going to take a little while to get back into the swing of things. I’ve been doing my work for the last twenty-something years, and this is a kind of a good warm-up to that. Certainly has not been an easy offseason by any means. I’m sure I’m in a different headspace than most of the competitors that have been rip-roaring ready to go racing the last month or so. I’m probably in a different spot than that. I would appreciate a few more months, but I don’t have that. We’ll just kind of see how it goes.”
With a long season ahead, both 23XI Racing and Denny Hamlin have a lot on their plates. Let’s wait and see how fate treats them.