Denny Hamlin's ally makes feelings known about JGR's win drought as the NASCAR championship round approaches

Denny Hamlin's crew chief, Chris Gabehart, recently commented on Joe Gibbs Racing's (JGR) long winless streak.

JGR's Christopher Bell last won a NASCAR Cup Series race for the team at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in July this year. The team's 16-race drought continued after Hamlin's No. 11 Toyota finished third last weekend at Homestead-Miami. In a talk with Bob Pockrass, Gabehart noted that there have been several incidents that have hurt their chances of winning.

"There's been several 11-car-only incidents that could jump out, took us out of great contention to win, so it's just part of the sport. The main thing is that your performance — your internal performance metrics — are the ones you have to look at and say we're capable of winning," Chris Gabehart said about Denny Hamlin's winless streak.

"The situation is just not working itself out, you know, and so when those performance metrics are there, that's the key thing. You just got to work through it," he added.

Hamlin has three wins this season: Würth 400 at Dover, Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond, and Food City 500 at Bristol.

Fellow JGR driver Bell's crew chief Adam Stevens also acknowledged the team's long drought and mentioned the Las Vegas race on October 20. Bell led 155 laps at the South Point 400 Cup Series playoff race but a caution flag during the final laps cost him a win.

"But there's been so many that have been, I mean, right through our fingers, right? I mean, but Vegas is in that category for us. If that caution doesn't fly at that time, then you know, we win that race," Adam Stevens said.

"You’ve got to run the whole race, complete all the laps, and then they only give the trophy to one person, and it hasn't been us in quite some time," he added.

Christopher Bell has three wins and three pole positions this season with 14 top-5 finishes.

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"Chris gave me everything I needed" - Denny Hamlin on finishing third at Homestead

Denny Hamlin also faced disappointment during the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, last Sunday. He lost a strong lead to Ryan Blaney in the last laps and finished third behind Blaney and Tyler Reddick, who won the race.

The 43-year-old talked about the last race on the latest episode of his "Actions Detrimental" podcast and pointed out his struggle with short runs.

"Short run wasn’t my specialty all day obviously...I want to be faster on the shorter run but it’s just, you know, a lot of it is what we build into the car and things like that. But Chris [Gabehart] gave me everything I needed there to try to race them. Just didn’t get it done,” Denny Hamlin said.

Hamlin is currently sixth in the playoffs standings, 18 points below the cut-line. He needs to win the next Round of 8 race at Martinsville to make it to the Championship 4.