Denny Hamlin wins his second pole of the season

LAT Images

Denny Hamlin earns Toyota’s second pole position of the season for tomorrow’s race at Dover International Speedway. It’s Hamlin’s fourth-career pole position at Dover International Speedway in his 500th career Cup Series start.

Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Report

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)

Dover International Speedway – October 5, 2019

TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS

1st, DENNY HAMLIN

2nd, Kyle Larson*

3rd, MARTIN TRUEX JR.

4th, Kevin Harvick*

5th, Chase Elliott*

8th, ERIK JONES

18th, KYLE BUSCH

20th, MATT DiBENEDETTO

*non-Toyota driver 

TOYOTA QUOTES

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Starting Position: 1st

Talk about your qualifying lap.

“Going out early was a benefit for us, and we just optimized it. The track tempature stayed pretty consistent through, but certainly didn’t think we were going to run 23.50 by any means. Proud to have that kind of effort with this team and our car has obviously been very good. This weekend, I’ve been very comfortable with it. The speed definitely caught us off guard, but it’s a great thing for us. We can take every advantage that we can at this race track. It’s been pretty tough on me. Certainly, I feel like the advantage of having that number one pit stall and obviously a very fast car bodes well for us.”

It seems like you have more confidence going into this Dover weekend than you have had in the past. What is making that difference?

“I think a lot of it has to do with the crew chief (Chris Gabehart). They’ve done a phemonenal job. When we go back to races the second time, they make the correct adjustments on what I have given them. So I think that has been our strong suit. Vegas, kind of being the only outlier, but we had some car issues there. But all of our other finishes – first, first, second – in all the other races that we have run twice. So I’m pretty optimistic going into this round that we have some tracks that we are repeating. That’s typically where we’ve excelled this year. Even though I’ve had past stumbles here and it hasn’t been my best race track, we know we are fully capable of winning at any race track. It doesn’t matter what the past history is.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Starting Position: 3rd

What is your outlook for this weekend?

“My outlook here’s never really changed. I love this track. The first time I made a lap here I fell in love with it. I still love it as much today. That was a really fun lap out there today. These cars are so fast right now with all this downforce. It felt completely awesome to run that lap.”

How do you feel going into tomorrow?

“I feel good. We won here in the spring and I feel like our car is a little bit better. We will see what we can do tomorrow.”

ERIK JONES, No. 20 DeWalt Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Starting Position: 8th

What are your objectives for the last seven races?

“Just try to win a couple. We’ve shown that we can win races and I think we can do it pretty conistently, we just have to have some things go our way and execute on our end as well. Just go in and do what we can to try to win. Dover has been an okay place for us in the past. We ran okay here in the spring. That’s the goal. We are going to try to get the DeWalt Camry some more wins.”

Walk us through your lap.

“It was okay. Kind of where I expected going out late. It’s getting hotter. We didn’t have a great car yesterday, so just kind of working through and trying to get a good starting spot and out race people. That has been our strength – just out racing people and making good adjustments. It was okay. It could have probably been a little better. I don’t think anyone is going to beat the 11 (Denny Hamlin) going out so early. The track was definitely the coolest there.”

MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 95 Dumont Jets Toyota Camry, Leavine Family Racing

Starting Position: 20th

How was your qualifying lap?

“We just over adjusted a little bit. Almost everytime I qualify here, you usually get loose and sideways. We just overadjusted a little bit and missed it some. No big deal. We should be okay tomorrow.”

Toyota Racing PR

Spread the love