Dale Earnhardt Jr. predicts JGR approach to Ty Gibbs after Denny Hamlin incident

Joe Gibbs Racing was the big story of the first three weeks of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. They are still the story coming out of Sunday’s Round of 12 opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but not because they won another race. No, this time they’re making headlines because of the on-track incident between Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs.

Gibbs — a non-playoff driver — battled Hamlin — a playoff driver — for 11th position in Stage 2. Gibbs did not make it easy on Hamlin, who made contact with him on Lap 111, sending his teammate into the wall. Just before that, Gibbs was seen racing hard with another JGR teammate who is in the playoffs, Christopher Bell. 

You can almost guarantee this has/will come up in JGR’s meetings this week. Dale Earnhardt Jr. explained how he believes JGR should handle it.

“I would assume that they’re all gonna sit down with Ty and say, ‘Hey, this is avoidable, and this wasn’t your day to be doing this.’ If we’re on race 10, fine. But this is the playoffs, and these are critical moments and critical positions,” Earnhardt said on Tuesday’s Dale Jr. Download. “To Denny’s point, like it or not, your teammate should be the easier cars to pass on the racetrack. It sucks to be out of the playoffs; it sucks to be a teammate out of the playoffs when you have the other three in the playoffs. I’ve lived that.

“You’re out there running your ass off, you’re having a hard year, you’re not happy with how your year has went, you’re frustrated and now you’re on the racetrack and you’re having to basically lay over for these guys. I’m not defending him, but I’m just saying it’s not a fun place to be. But you’ve got to do it.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. opines on Denny Hamlin-Ty Gibbs incident

Joe Gibbs said he wants the drivers to take care of it; Hamlin would prefer if JGR leadership stepped in and handled it. It’s easy in Earnhardt’s mind. He said Ty Gibbs should stand up and admit he “f*cked up.”

“Where is the processing here? Why aren’t we processing the obvious commonsense thing to do in these situations? I just feel so silly saying all of these commonsense things. This should have never happened,” Earnhardt said. “This is a big teaching moment for Ty, well beyond next week and his racing career.

“… Ty should stand up in the meeting and say, ‘I f*cked up, I should have let the other guys go. I don’t know what I was thinking, that was foolish of me, and it won’t happen again going further in these playoffs.'”

JGR had all the positive momentum after sweeping the Round of 16. Now, nobody wants to talk about that; they want to talk about the incident between Hamlin and Gibbs.

“They looked like coming out of the last few weeks to have had all the momentum,” Earnhardt said. “And so, they go into this race or go forward in these playoffs looking like a team with a real chance to take this title. You see Chris Gabehart in the meeting saying, ‘I think the champion comes out of this room,’ talking about the drivers at Joe Gibbs Racing, and then you have this happen.

“If you’re leadership at Joe Gibbs Racing, you’re like, ‘Guys, c’mon. We have all this momentum, now we’re the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.’ That’s frustrating if you’re Chris or somebody in a leadership role.”