Denny Hamlin has been feeling the pressure of being a team owner in the Cup Series. After numerous years of service and exhilarating racing in NASCAR, his venture as a team owner has had its ups and downs. The ongoing concern in the team environment has been qualifying for the playoffs. With a slump in their form, the build-up to the playoffs has been challenging for 23XI Racing and their two drivers.

With his fair share of experience in such situations, Denny’s takeaway from the results is that they need to remove the complacency and continue to work in sync. He has also put the spotlight on a deficiency of maturity in the team’s approach and called for a collective effort.

“We all have to get better”: Denny Hamlin reviews 23XI Racing’s season so far

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s words suggest a hint of dissatisfaction. One of the better performers in the team has been Tyler Reddick, who also is undergoing a tough few months with his last finish above 27th coming in the Coke 600. But with a win at COTA, he’s comfortably headed to the playoffs.

Bubba Wallace‘s qualification is the one hanging by a thread, rather. With such a significant dip in performances from both the crew and drivers, Denny feels that stepping up to the occasion is the need of the hour. “They’re running OK“. As he says, their performance over the season has not been anything extraordinary either. With seven races remaining, they might need to change their ways.

“Certainly, would like to see a little more performance, a little more execution on the team’s part. The team has its fair share of growing that they need to do. The drivers, as long as they do their part, then it’s up for us to make sure the team executes. They let him down in some spots, for sure. We all have to get better.” said Hamlin.

There have been signs of promise after a great practice session in New Hampshire. Clocking a good pace, both Reddick and Bubba find themselves in the top 5 in the lap record standings. After another disastrous race in Atlanta, they hope to extract more from Sunday’s race.

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Bubba Wallace on what went wrong with the #23 team

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The Bubba we saw in May and what we have seen in the past few races are two opposite ends of a quality spectrum. At Atlanta, he finished 25th. The No. 23 Toyota Camry driver did have his share of contact and was involved in the incident with Ryan Preece, which eventually was the last action of the race. Due to the impending downpour, the race, had to be ended, ending Bubba’s conquest of points.

If anything, Bubba is quick to introspect and in hindsight, he can identify the faults in their racing as well.

“We had a few mistakes that started off our weekend bad. I guess you could say that’s in the cards, so we don’t deserve to be in right now with the way we’re performing and executing.” says the 29-year-old.

With the situation Bubba is in, a minor inconvenience or mistake could cost them in the long run. With the level of competition on the grid nowadays, things like that might just as well be classified as excuses for failure. With special emphasis on teamwork to solve the issues as a team, Bubba claims,

“This week was a big reflection week for everybody on the #23 team on how we need to execute. Mistakes like this at this point in the season, there’s no excuse for it. Whether it’s my fault on track or the crew’s fault in preparation. We need to be better as a team moving forward to even think about playoffs.”

Bubba’s circumstances, surprisingly, were worse last season, with a 178-point deficit to the cutoff mark. He has quite a great chance of making the playoffs, even on the basis of stage points. However, winning a race might just be the harder but shorter route to that. Things need to tighten up, as this will be Bubba’s fifth consecutive season without qualifying for the playoffs if it keeps going this way.

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