In mid-June, Denny Hamlin tied a record set by a NASCAR veteran. He attained his fifth pole at Pocono Raceway, posting a lap of 172.599 mph around the 2.5-mile tri-oval. He led the 37-car field at the ‘Tricky Triangle and finished the race in runner-up place. This was only one of the multitude of achievements of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. And it has been majorly due to a fantastic camaraderie between Hamlin and his new crew chief.

The veteran whose record Hamlin matched could not agree more. After all, Chris Gayle has done a fantastic job across the 2025 Cup Series season. His golden efforts led the championship right to Hamlin’s fingertips – until it slipped away due to a late-race mishap.

Denny Hamlin’s crew chief took the right call

That is what Ken Schrader believes; he is a four-time Cup race winner who once raced for Rick Hendrick. His old team owner fetched his 15th Cup Series title last Sunday. And while hailing Kyle Larson’s two-tire call, which landed him the title, Schrader did not blame Hamlin’s four-tire call. He said, “Obviously, Kyle and them took the two and it worked out. But you know, I’m not a social media guy, so I haven’t been looking at everything. But from that one little thing I saw, Denny Hamlin was 100% behind his four tires.”

Some fans pointed to Chris Gayle for messing up the pit strategy after William Byron’s caution on lap 309. However, since Denny Hamlin was fully on board with the decision, Ken Schrader did not see any mistake on Gayle’s part. Meanwhile, Kyle Larson’s crew chief, Cliff Daniels, made a gamble that worked out. Schrader continued that Hamlin’s conscious decision was important. “That’s what matters. If it wasn’t crew chief against crew chief, it was team against team. And Kyle’s like, Just give me a little something, and I’ll go.”

When Joe Gibbs recruited Chris Gayle for the No. 11 team position, Denny Hamlin had doubts. Gayle had won only two Cup Series race trophies in nearly 200 starts outside of an Xfinity Series resume. However, Gayle understood his assignment, word for word. He helped Hamlin win 6 trophies this season and crack the Championship 4 for the first time since 2021. That is why the theory that Hamlin lost the championship just due to Gayle’s pit call seems outlandish – and other veterans agree with Ken Schrader.

What’s more, Denny Hamlin also defended Chris Gayle for the pit call. He said neither Gayle nor he himself suspected the enormous traffic that dropped Hamlin to 10th on the restart. “We had no idea that many people were going to go in there and say, ‘All right, I’ll put myself in the middle of the Championship 4.’ And so I think maybe some of the thought process, too, is that there’s not going to be too many crazy strategies or different strategies here because probably no one wants to be part of the ending story. But it just worked out the way it did.”

Hence, Chris Gayle put in as much effort as was needed of him for the Championship battle. Yet that is also why Hamlin thought he had it.

Missing by a hair’s breadth

When Carl Edwards resigned from NASCAR racing in 2016, fans speculated about the reason. And the topmost cause was his missing the Cup Series championship. He led for 47 laps at the Homestead-Miami finale and lost the lead due to a late-race caution with 10 laps to go. Doesn’t that sound eerily similar to Denny Hamlin’s situation? Well, Hamlin believed so too, as he said at the NASCAR Awards, “Nothing changed the way I felt about myself at the end of that race, and to use Carl Edwards’ quote, ‘I knew what it was like to be a champion.’”

Denny Hamlin experienced a clutch problem and tire issues, but the team sailed through these problems expertly. So after handling the race perfectly, having to witness it slip through his fingers hurt Hamlin more. “I felt it. With five [laps] to go, I knew it was over. I don’t have the trophy, but I knew that was probably the first time that I was forced to perform a certain way under this format, and I did it. There’s nothing else I possibly could have done to change the outcome.”

The heartbreaking outcome clearly left an impact not just on Denny Hamlin but also on his renewed fanbase. Let’s wait and see if the JGR veteran can come back with revamped energy next season.