Denny Hamlin Knows Team’s Decision May Hurt Feelings In Joe Gibbs Racing Engine Shop

Denny Hamlin is switching from engines built by Joe Gibbs Racing to the ones built by Toyota Racing Development (TRD) for the remainder of the NASCAR season – starting this weekend at Michigan – while teammate Kyle Busch is sticking with JGR.

Understandably, that’s bound to create some bruised egos and resentment in the JGR engine shop – which recently announced a merger with TRD that will go into full effect next season.

But Hamlin said it’s an unfortunate tradeoff he’ll have to accept in order to ensure his team not only makes the Chase but contends for the championship.

“It’s a tough balance, because you have some employees that take a lot of pride in their work,” he said Friday at Michigan International Speedway. “When you ultimately switch, some people’s feelings get hurt sometimes. We have to do what we have to do to make sure we finish races at this point. Being on the bubble, we cannot afford any DNFs. We’re just doing what we have to do. I hate to say it.”

As recently as last week, it wasn’t anticipated that Hamlin or any other JGR drivers would use a TRD motor before next season. The installation of the motor is different, and TRD’s engines didn’t fit the JGR cars.

But Hamlin and his No. 11 team pushed to get a TRD motor and make the necessary changes in time for Michigan. Why? Because Hamlin has suffered four blown engines in practices this season and said he could no longer afford to start in the back of the field.

“You have to understand, this is a big favor to ask a manufacturer to provide engines for us for the rest of the year,” he said. “It’s a lot of manpower. A lot of work had to be done, especially within JGR ... to get this engine imported into our car.

“I was behind it 100 percent. I felt like it was the right thing to do. Ultimately what matters is results. Things happen, engines blow...but we felt like (TRD has) worked out a lot of reliability issues that they had early on.”

So why has Hamlin’s team seen more failures this season than the motors used by Busch or Joey Logano? There’s no explanation but simply luck of the draw, Hamlin said.

“I’m as careful with equipment as I can possibly be,” he said. “I don’t put my car in reverse in practice – all kinds of little things I do to make sure I’m easy on equipment. Coincidence, procedures, things like that – who knows why? Bad luck. We don’t know why because these engines are kind of random in the sense of who gets what.”