Chris Gayle has a massive hand behind Denny Hamlin’s recent success in the Cup Series. The crew chief, hired in November of 2024, has helped the #11 team return to the top of the field. But even though his win at Pocono earlier marked an important milestone for Hamlin as he achieved his career’s first three-peat, Gayle has seen late-race cautions derail championships before.

“I was just talking to one of the engineers, and I’m like, you know, you don’t want to be greedy. You think about this kind of… these kind of runs in your dreams, right? Of being able to go on a great winning stretch, three poles, all the rest,” Gayle said while speaking to the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio recently after the race at the Pocono Speedway. Hamlin led from pole to win his fourth race of the season, cutting Tyler Reddick‘s points lead to 19.

Denny Hamlin’s 2026 is his most consistent season in two decades, and Gayle deserves much of the credit. Still, despite all the domination and the pace the #11 team is showing at the front of the pack right now, Gayle has his doubts. Despite four wins this season, Gayle warns against overconfidence.

“Regardless of the result, there’s plenty of times that caution falls the wrong way, the result doesn’t work out. But the process with the guys, the enjoyment that you get refining that, that’s what I take the most joy in,” he explained.

Motorsports’ unpredictability means a single race can shift momentum, or destroy it. Many conclusions can be drawn from a single race. Even though Denny Hamlin won at Pocono earlier, even a small pit stop mishap, or a mis-timed caution flag (especially when Reddick was chasing him down in the final laps on new tires) can change the fate of the race.

That was exactly what happened during the season’s final race at Phoenix last year. Leading the most laps of all drivers, Hamlin was almost given to take home his first Cup Series championship. However, a very late caution changed the course of the race, as he lost out to Kyle Larson, who ended up winning the title. Unlike the Phoenix loss, Gayle’s strategy at Pocono prioritized stage wins to build a cushion against late cautions.

Although under the Chase format, reinstated this season onwards, a situation like this is less likely to occur, it does prove the point of how fragile a lead in racing is. Even the smallest issue, the tiniest piece of debris on the track, can change where the driver stands in terms of the championship, and no one seems to understand it better than Chris Gayle at the moment.

Denny Hamlin credits Chris Gayle for keeping the team’s morale up at Pocono

With an average finish of 1.5 since 2023, Hamlin is one of the strongest drivers at the Pocono Raceway, and a total of eight Cup Series wins make him the driver with the most wins on the ‘Tricky Triangle.’ 

Although he has always had the pace to keep his competition behind him on the track, Hamlin understands that a race cannot be won solely based on pace, as there’s a lot more that goes into producing a competitive weekend. And to make up places on a track like Pocono, which he claims is not so easy to overtake on, Hamlin credits Gayle for the energy he brings to the team.

“It was probably more speed, but you can lose by strategy. Speed allows us to run the strategy we want to run. It takes a lot of faith from Chris Gayle to say, We’re going to win this stage, which I know at this point now, I’ve got to go pass seven cars. It’s not easy to pass here. He had faith that we could do it, we could get the restarts we needed,” he told the media after the race.

Although Hamlin sits secure in second place in the points table, chasing down the #45 driver with great pace, there are still plenty of races remaining where he will have to keep his form up. The Chase format prioritizes consistency, and Reddick happens to be the best example to make a note of the same. Despite having won five races right at the start of the season, his lead is now shrinking at a great pace.

That being said, Denny Hamlin is still one of the strongest contenders for the title this season. And with Chris Gayle, who led the #11 team into Phoenix last year, getting them closer to winning the title than they had ever been, Joe Gibbs Racing might as well manage to end the drought for Hamlin this time around.