"This was not a good start": Denny Hamlin touches on underwhelming start to his season amid Christopher Bell's repeat wins

Denny Hamlin has commented on the start to his 2025 season. Hamlin registered a 21st place finish on Sunday during NASCAR's outing on the road course at COTA, a race his teammate Christopher Bell won.

In fact, Bell won the second race of the season at Atlanta before his win at COTA as well. But while in Bell's case it has been back-to-back wins, in Hamlin's case the results have been less than ideal.

So far this season, the #11 driver has a couple of finishes outside the top 20 and a sixth place finish at Atlanta.

Recently on Actions Detrimental, the show's co-host wondered whether after two superspeedways and one road course race later, the season will truly begin for Hamlin.

"For me, personally, this was not a good start schedule wise for me, the first three races, two superspeedways and a road course. Now, the superspeedways gives me anxiety because I always get crashed in them. It's not anything I'm doing wrong. You know you have a chance of ending with three 30 place finishes in a row," Denny Hamlin described. [46:06]

The JGR veteran claimed that now the schedule is heading into a phase where they can start measuring how 'the field really stacks up.'

Denny Hamlin highlighted that after Homestead, one would have a better perspective on 'who's got speed' in the first part of the season.

---

Denny Hamlin admits to not liking being beaten by his JGR teammate Christopher Bell

Speaking on his podcast show, Denny Hamlin also opened up on his feelings as a competitor regarding Christopher Bell's second win in a row. Hamlin claimed that he hates seeing his teammate win because of the fact that they both share the same equipment.

He clarified that he loves Bell, but he also doesn't want to be beaten by him on the track.

"You always measure yourself off your teammates...I'm congratulating Heather (JGR co-owner) and Joe, it's a big win for the team. But as a driver, as a competitor, we do not like seeing our teammates win."

Hamlin further remarked on the 'shame' as he claimed he enjoys driving on road courses. Having said that, he wished he was 'better at it.'

It's worth mentioning that in his 55 starts at road courses as the #11 driver, Hamlin has just one win, which came at Watkins Glen in 2016. Between June 2016 and August 2017, he finished inside the top five in all of the four road course races.

All in all, Hamlin has 12 top five finishes, three of which have come in the form of runner-up results.