Last year ended in heartbreak for Joe Gibbs and his team. Denny Hamlin reached the Championship 4 for the fifth time in his career, only to narrowly lose the Cup Series title to Kyle Larson. Despite winning 11 races, the team’s otherwise stellar season ended in disappointment. But for the driver who had taken them all the way to the final hurdle, Joe Gibbs had just one message: “I’m proud of ya, thank you.”

Gibbs may have to say the same thing to Hamlin, or his other three drivers, at the end of the 2026 season as well. But perhaps, on a much happier note, considering how things are going so far.

Ty Gibbs, with a win at the Iowa Corn 350 on Sunday, went to second in the Championship standings, 103 points behind the leader, Hamlin. Not far behind in #5 and #6 are the other JGR drivers, Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell. Joe Gibbs is a happy man, thanks to this dominance, and looks to be in good spirits ahead of The Chase, where his team goes as championship favorites.

“I think they are special. If you look at each one of them,” Gibbs said about this roster in a press conference after the Iowa Corn 350. He proceeded to talk about his drivers and why the combination works so well for the team as a whole.

Gibbs shed light on Briscoe’s seven poles last year and also on Bell’s seven runner-up finishes in 2026, which he considers special despite Bell being the only JGR driver this year yet to go to Victory Lane.

“With Adam, he’s got a great team there,” Gibbs added, praising Bell’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, who has been with him since 2021, and also James Small, Briscoe’s crew chief who paired with him in 2025.

Stevens and Bell’s partnership has kept him in championship contention year after year. They finished third in the Championship in 2022 and have won 13 Cup Series races together. Bell hasn’t won this year, but his consistency has him comfortably on course to make the Chase.

Briscoe, meanwhile, won his only race of the season in Chicagoland last month. He has nine top-five finishes and 12 top-10s this season and sits 166 points above the cutline. With Small, he won three races in 2025, establishing himself as one of the best drivers in the garage.

Gibbs also spoke about Hamlin and his crew chief, Chris Gayle, who worked exceptionally well together on Sunday at Iowa Speedway. Before the race, Hamlin had almost given up hope of a good result after starting at the back of the grid due to unapproved component changes made while the team repaired his cooling unit. He left the track with a fifth-place finish, and a proud Joe Gibbs couldn’t help but praise him.

Joe Gibbs never saw Denny Hamlin so exhausted

From being a development driver to a modern-day great, Joe Gibbs has seen Hamlin’s rise since 2004, when he first signed a contract with the team. And yet, in those 22 years, he hadn’t seen his star driver as tired as he was after the Iowa Corn 350.

“I want to say this. I’ve never seen Denny that exhausted. He got out of that car, and he was sitting there on the pit wall. I think he was so nervous. We all were about the brakes, and it just put a lot of extra pressure on him. I think he drove his heart out,” Gibbs said in the same interview after the race.

Hamlin’s weekend began with him breaking his brake pedal in the practice session, something his team couldn’t repair on time. He didn’t get enough time to put in a few laps before qualifying, and with the pedal still messed up, could not do better than 29th on Saturday. To make matters worse, a penalty forced him to start from the rear end.

“This is the worst mindset I’ve had going into a race, and I can remember, I never felt beat before [a race], Hamlin said in an interview after the race on Sunday.

He finished fifth and praised his team, led by crew chief Gayle, who did a fine job managing the brake ducts with the others. He avoided disaster by not DNFing, and in the grander scheme of things, with the Chase just three more races away, the fifth-place result would have felt like a win.

This was what Gibbs was talking about. All the partnerships within his team are working. The crew chiefs and drivers are in sync, and that’s what a championship-winning team looks like.

Ty Gibbs’ victory last night, followed by Bell finishing second, Hamlin fifth, and Briscoe sixth, was a clear sign of their dominance. They’re firing on all cylinders, and Gibbs recognizes that.

“All four of these guys are great teammates and work together. It shows how hard the sport is. Just to win one of these races, so much goes into it. The guys just kept working, and I appreciate all of our people. Our dream is to have four cars capable of winning. Right now, we think we’re in that spot, so we want to make the most of it,” Joe Gibbs said on Sunday night.

Gibbs has plenty to be excited about. The real test now comes in the Chase, where this dominance will need to translate into a championship.