For Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team, that means focusing now on getting the most at tracks on which they are typically strong and executing well in races in which they have winning speed.
Sunday night’s race at Richmond (Va.) Raceway – the Virginia native’s home track – is a prime opportunity. He has four wins and 18 top fives in 34 career starts at the ¾-mile track with his most recent victory coming in this race two years ago.
“This is a track always where we are starting to get into the swing of the tracks where we are going to be contenders every week. This kind of kicks off that part of the schedule,” Hamlin said Saturday.
“I think we all kind of know where we are at now. We are six races in. We know what our strengths are. We know what our weaknesses are, and now we just have to capitalize when we go to tracks like this that we are always contenders.
“It is going to be an execution game. It is not going to be a speed game. We will have that. It is making sure we execute.”
Hamlin has definitely shown the ability to compete regularly for wins. His win at Bristol locked him into the playoffs already, he is fourth in the series standings and has led the most laps in the series (275).
“With the pit crew I have this year, they’ve been on it. I feel like our speed has been as good as it’s ever been,” he said.
“We are running inside the top-five more than we ever have, even though we have not finished there quite yet. I feel pretty good about it.”
Hamlin will line up 11th in Sunday night’s race after just missing the cut to make the final round of Saturday’s qualifying.
That’s not a bad sign – two of his four Richmond wins have come starting 13th or worse.
“I’m excited for this race. All week I’ve been excited to get here and kind of see where we stack up,” he said. “Certainly, with the history we have here over the last three or four races here at Richmond, being in contention, I feel pretty strongly about it.
“I would say that this is one that historically that I’ve always been good at, JGR has always been really good at, and then with the momentum it seems like our cars have, and our manufacturer – hopefully, we can tack on that little extra speed that we’ve shown here lately.”
