Denny Hamlin Weirdly Mediocre At Austin Qualifying
7 hours agoDenny Hamlin, the driver of the No. 11 Toyota, fittingly qualified 11th at Circuit of the Americas, but curiously, the Joe Gibbs Racing car he drives has not seemed to be as fast on road courses (especially here) as the 23XI Racing cars he owns. While both of his drivers locked out the front row (including Bubba Wallace, who is not a noted road racer) the JGR cars all qualified substantially slower but Hamlin did qualify faster than his teammates. In recent years, Hamlin has tended to be faster in road course qualifying than the race as he won three road/street course poles in 2023 but tended to either fade or crash. At Austin, he consistently ran in the upper midfield with finishes between 14th and 18th. It doesn't seem likely that the speed will be there for him this weekend, so he isn't a good fantasy option.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference