Denny Hamlin wins pole, is feeling optimistic ahead of Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma

Denny Hamlin will lead the field to green as the pole-sitter in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

The 42-year-old will be going for his first-career victory at Sonoma — a race track which has tripped him up in the past. Hamlin has recorded an average finish of 17.9 in 16 starts, including a P31 result in last year’s race. This time around, Hamlin is looking forward to the opportunity to turn his fortunes around in California. He discussed his pole-winning run, mentioning that his crew chief, Chris Gabehart, was content with his initial qualifying lap in the final round before Hamlin convinced him to take another.

Hamlin did, and it paid off, earning the 38th pole of his NASCAR Cup Series career.

Denny Hamlin’s pole-winning run has him optimistic about the race at Sonoma. But there’s something else that he’s looking forward to today. He explains: pic.twitter.com/E7Y0f787lZ

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 11, 2023

“Chris was trying to get me to unbuckle after our first lap in the final round,” Hamlin said. “He was like, ‘That’s a great day, that’s a good starting spot,’ and I just asked like ‘You don’t want me to try again – I feel like maybe I could do it.’ And so I’m glad that we did try again. The good thing we saw about the tires is they have a big fall off after a certain amount of laps,” Hamlin said, via Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports. “I saw like two seconds or more after like 10 laps, which is really good.

Will Denny Hamlin go wire-to-wire in Toyota/Save Mart 350?

“It’s gonna allow us to — tires are going to matter, your pit strategy will matter… All that basically means is we didn’t do a good job on our earlier laps and listen, none of us are really professional road course racers. We don’t do it all the time. There’s some that are certainly better than others, but if you can go right back out and run faster, it just means you didn’t optimize or do a good enough job your first time out.”

Hamlin currently sits eighth in the points standings, having raced his No. 11 Toyota to victory lane once — the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway. To pick up his second victory of the 2023 season and the 50th of his career, he’ll have to do something Kyle Busch pulled off last Sunday: go wire-to-wire.

Hamlin will start on the front row alongside Tyler Reddick, who has won three of the last five road courses on the Cup Series schedule.

“I think he certainly exposed me and my lack of skills,” Hamlin said, via the Associated Press. “Knew he would. You always want people that challenge you to be better and when Tyler came over here this year, we knew that he was going to be the bar that we were going to have to set ourselves against.”