“It’s made my career”: Denny Hamlin breaks silence amid JGR’s $65B sponsor’s potential exit

Denny Hamlin recently spoke about his multi-billion dollar sponsor's impact on the former's NASCAR career. This comes after the reported downsizing of operations by Joe Gibbs Racing's long-serving partner FedEx and reports of them entirely terminating their deals amid cost-cutting measures.

FedEx's relation to JGR dates back to 2005. At that time, Hamlin ran a full-time Xfinity schedule for Joe Gibbs and was in talks of being promoted to NASCAR's Premier level. In 2006, he secured a full-time Cup ride and was sponsored by the Memphis-based company.

In 2023 however, the logistics giant, having a market capitalization of $65.37 billion (as per Forbes), announced their plan of $4 billion cost-cutting to be achieved by fiscal 2025. This included $1.5 billion in the 'General and Administrative' area.

Since the 2022 season, the billion-dollar giant has reduced its backing for Joe Gibbs' Cup Series team. The most recent example of FedEx's downsizing can be traced to the organization ending its naming rights deal, in the recent offseason, with NFL's Commanders, which was inked in 1999.

Amid FedEx's likely total exit as JGR's sponsor, Denny Hamlin was asked about the impact of having a financially sound sponsor for two decades. The 54-time Cup race winner said (via Frontstretch).

"It's been a fantastic partnership that we've had nearly 20 years. They're the ones that really took a risk on me when I was just running the Xfinity Series about P5-P8 every week...that risk paid off for many many years and couldn't be happier to be aligned with FedEx and certainly I got to do lot of great things," Hamlin said (0:23).

"It's made my career, it made a lot easier being aligned with someone for that long and we're gonna continue to represent on and off the racetrack for the time to come," he added (1:20).

FedEx will fund Hamlin's #11 Toyota for the upcoming Round of 12 opener at Kansas Speedway.

FedEx drastically reduced Denny Hamlin's sponsorship for the 2024 season

For multiple years until the 2021 season, the logistics magnate took care of all 38 races on Denny Hamlin's Cup Series schedule. But since the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, especially in the transport and shipping sector, corporates such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, Blue Dart, etc., suffered a massive surge in operating costs due to delayed deliveries.

Thus, FedEx eyed to reduce its costs to ensure business longevity. However, that has impacted the JGR driver's sponsorship since the 2021 season. From financing the entire season, the billion-dollar giant has come down to just 10 races this year, including the upcoming Kansas battle.

In addition to FedEx, the #11 Toyota has been sponsored by Mavis Tires & Brakes, Interstate Batteries, Yahoo, and Sport Clips. Denny Hamlin has won three Daytona 500s, all with FedEx as the sponsor

JGR is reportedly finding alternate sponsors but has declined to comment on its future relationship with FedEx.