Over the last few months, Denny Hamlin experienced heartbreaks one after the other. From losing out on the championship by a whisker to losing his father in a fire accident, the NASCAR veteran experienced it all. Finally, in Las Vegas, the Joe Gibbs Racing star had a redemption, thanks to his new associate, who joined him after Chris Gabehart’s exit.

Denny Hamlin’s new aide helped on and off the track?

In a recent interview with Cup Scene on YouTube, Chris Gayle, Hamlin’s crew chief, opened up about the race and how he helped prepare the #11 driver mentally after what he had been through in the last few months. Speaking about a fresh start, Gayle said:

“We just talked about the stuff going into the season. Really, we just talked about, Okay, it didn’t got way we wanted. How do we rewrite what’s coming in the future? What you don’t want to do, same problem I have, same thing he’s got, there’s a lot of things that happened in the past, you don’t want to drag them forward, create more problems for yourself.”

Following this, Gayle shed light on how Hamlin started to slowly improve race after race, firstly at COTA, where he finished 10th. In the following race at Phoenix, he was inside the Top five. Finally at Las Vegas, he emerged victorious, securing a redemption.

“I could tell he wasn’t locked in. We were having some conversations. I was probably ahead of him at that point. I could tell with his responses he hadn’t thought about some of them. You kind of get through the speedways, he gets through a couple of those, it starts to kind of click. We had the good run at COTA. A little better run at Phoenix. I think you see him each week getting more and more locked in. That’s how you do it. You keep the confidence going,” Gayle further added.

Denny Hamlin suffered a heartbreaking loss in the 2025 Cup Series Championship when he lost to Kyle Larson in the final race at Phoenix. As a result, he missed out on a Cup title six times in 21 years. His tough time wasn’t over as nearly two months later, his father, Dennis Hamlin, passed away in a fire accident in North Carolina.

Naturally, Hamlin’s end of 2025 was disastrous. On the other hand, he was also involved in the lawsuit with 23XI Racing, a team he co-owns. However, coming into 2026, things began to fall in place. At first, the lawsuit came to a mutual end, and then Hamlin started his second season with Chris Gayle, his current crew chief, who replaced Chris Gabehart last year.

Currently, Gabehart is a controversial figure after his recent involvement with Spire Motorsports. Nevertheless, Gabehart’s departure and Gayle’s arrival helped the JGR driver, as the duo won six races last year and most recently won the Las Vegas Cup race.

Denny Hamlin returned to winning ways, regained focus

After months of a tumultuous journey, Denny Hamlin finally returned to winning ways, and this time, with regained focus. Starting from second place, the #11 driver kept his momentum going and snatched the victory comfortably.

“I knew it took a few weeks to feel like driving,” Hamlin told the media after his Las Vegas win. “Over the last couple weeks, I definitely regained my love of it, got refocused. These are great opportunities for us.”

Thanks to the victory, Hamlin now has 61 Cup Series wins to his name, and with this, he surpassed Kevin Harvick’s tally of 60 wins. In the Drivers’ Standings, Hamlin made a significant jump of eight places, and is currently in fourth place with 177 points.