"Everyone should care": Denny Hamlin calls for solidarity amid 23XI Racing's lawsuit against NASCAR

Denny Hamlin recently commented on his fellow NASCAR drivers' takes on 23XI Racing's legal battle with NASCAR. Drivers like Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski shared their opinions on the Hamlin-Michael Jordan co-owned team taking NASCAR to court before last Sunday's Cup race at Talladega.

Larson had deemed the ongoing conflict "the biggest story in the sport". He also remarked on the drivers' salaries which have gone down over the last few years. Hamlin focused on the issue during his podcast Actions Detrimental.

"All those guys spoke about it a little bit when asked, and why the drivers should care is because when the teams are healthy, we are going to pay more for their services. That's just normal protocol. And you've seen that over time that driver salaries have gone down (...) team mechanics, their salaries have gone down, crew chief (salaries) have gone down.

Everyone in our sport has gone down except for one party. And that's the party that's on the other end of this lawsuit. Everyone should care," Denny Hamlin said. [14:45]

The veteran said that teams have shared the burden of the collective revenue going down over time and the drivers, who are generally "your biggest ticket items", have also been affected.

Further sharing his thoughts on NASCAR drivers' salaries, Hamlin said they are on a "very wide spectrum".

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Denny Hamlin lays out the harsh reality of driver salaries in NASCAR

Denny Hamlin said on Actions Detrimental that some drivers are at the top, and close to the peak of drivers' pay in the sport. Then there's a tier of drivers who are "good, not great", and making not as much. But beyond that, the JGR veteran pointed to the drivers who are suffering the most according to him.

"You've got a lot of the field that is not making as much as an engineer makes. It's really, really dispersed throughout the field. And quite frankly when you add up what the driver salaries are throughout, the entire salariesrare all put together, it's in the 3-5% range, it's very very low of the total revenue coming in the sport. You can't equate that to any other sport whatsoever," Denny Hamlin said. [16:10]

The 23XI Racing co-owner emphasized that NASCAR drivers risk their lives every week when they strap into a racecar. So naturally, because of all these factors, the drivers should care. He said that as time passed and teams became less healthy, the drivers took the biggest financial hit because they were only paid what the teams could afford.