Denny Hamlin Predicted To Suffer Similar JGR Fate As Kyle Busch

Kevin Harvick recently shared some intriguing thoughts about Denny Hamlin’s upcoming season with Joe Gibbs Racing, claiming that it might follow a similar path to Kyle Busch’s last days with the team which was marked by a series of challenges.

As Joe Gibbs Racing undergoes considerable changes, these could potentially impact Hamlin’s run as he continues his fight for the elusive championship victory.

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FedEx has withdrawn its longstanding sponsorship of Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota, a move reminiscent of M&M’s discontinuation of support for Busch during his final JGR days.

Compounding the changes, Chris Gabehart, Hamlin’s crew chief since 2019, has shifted to another role within JGR, making way for Chris Gayle to assume this critical position.

Gabehart’s time with the No. 11 team was marked by multiple wins and playoff appearances, contributing to Hamlin’s reputation as a consistent contender for the championship, despite never having captured the coveted NASCAR Cup Series title.

Speaking about Hamlin’s 2025 season during an episode of ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,’ he explained:

“I think it’s just like the Kyle Busch scenario. It has to start really good. The first six weeks have to go good.

“I think that he will be very determined to make it all go away by performing well, and [he’ll] be very engaged at the beginning.

“I think that I said this on the first show, having Rodney Childers and knowing that he was going to do things that I liked, and we had this system and had it built and it just functioned is exactly where he and Chris Gabehart part were.

“Now, you take that out, how does that go? … You’re going to have to go through all that.”

Harvick also pointed out the need for Hamlin to remain deeply invested in overcoming the new team dynamics without Gabehart, which might require him to spend more time focusing on Joe Gibbs Racing and potentially drawing time away from his commitments at 23XI Racing, the NASCAR team he co-founded with Michael Jordan. Harvick continued:

“He’s going to have to be more engaged, which is going to take away time from 23XI, and the things that he has to do over there.

“The things that happen, and all those things outside of his team, because now he’s — in order for this to work as good as it did with Gabehart with the No. 11, he’s going to have to take a big chunk of that time to put into the No. 11 team, because it just functioned.

“That’s what allowed me, when I was with Rodney, to go do all these other things. With Chris, that allowed Denny to go do all these other things. He was good with it, because their system worked great.

“So, if that doesn’t happen pretty quick, you’re going to see some tension build really quickly around this whole scenario.”

Harvick concluded:

“The good thing about Denny Hamlin is he loves the sport and he loves everything about it.

“He puts his whole life into what he does, and I feel like it could be [Kyle Busch] 2.0 if it doesn’t start well, just because he has so many other options at his side to really focus on. But this sport is crazy, and it could go in 100 different directions.

“I think, with the respect that he has for Joe Gibbs, and his scenario with the No. 11 car and everything, he’s going to put a ton of work into it. It’s just a matter if it clicks.

“We have so many of those scenarios that it’s just a matter of if it clicks for a driver and crew chief, and I think it could go a number of different ways in several scenarios with several of these situations.”

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