Denny Hamlin's former right-hand man touts "more to come" after impressive JGR Phoenix showing

Joe Gibb Racing's competition director and former crew chief for Denny Hamlin, Chris Gabehart, shared his thoughts in a social media post after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix Raceway. Christopher Bell in the No. 20 Toyota won his third straight race by narrowly beating Denny Hamlin in a 1-2 finish for JGR.

Following the first three-race win streak since 2021, Gabehart wrote about the team's successful day on X:

"And now 🏆🏆🏆 [Christopher Bell] and that 20 team are on it! But my man [Denny Hamlin] gave him all he wanted for a 1-2 finish! So proud of everyone [Joe Gibbs Racing] and [Toyota] for such a strong start. More to come!"

Bell dominated the second half of the Shriners Children’s 500 and became the first driver after Kyle Larson four years ago to win three races in a row. He led 105 laps and won the second stage.

"That’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red tires on, you’re like, All right, what I don’t want to happen is go 20, 30 laps, get a yellow. That happened. Then we went 10 more laps, had another yellow. It was all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were racing really, really hard there coming to the line," Bell said via NBC Sports.

Meanwhile, Hamlin's second-place finish was his best at Phoenix Raceway since winning the playoff race in 2019.

"Ran out of racetrack there" - Denny Hamlin on runner-up finish at Phoenix

Denny Hamlin finished just 0.049 seconds behind Christopher Bell at Phoenix Raceway last Sunday. He spent most of the race in the top 10 but moved up after a quick pit stop. This was Hamlin's second top-10 finish after Atlanta with new crew chief Chris Gayle.

Gayle replaced Gabehart this year as the No. 11 team's crew chief. Gabehart and Hamlin worked together for six years and won 23 races, including two Daytona 500s together. During a post-race interview, Hamlin praised his No. 11 team and said via NBC Sports:

"Great job out of this team. Got better and better as it went. Pit crew did a phenomenal job to keep us in the game when we had a bad stop in the middle. They made up for it at the end. First time we were able to get some clean air all day. Obviously our car was really fast....But we got a good restart....Obviously we just kind of ran out of racetrack there."

Denny Hamlin finished 21st at Circuit of the Americas and came in sixth at Atlanta Motor Speedway. At the season opener in Daytona, he was running up front but got caught in a big crash on the final lap, ending up in 24th place. The 44-year-old's last Cup win came at Dover Motor Speedway in April 2024.