Denny Hamlin gets brutally honest on his relationship with Bubba Wallace after Brickyard 400 win

Denny Hamlin watched as Bubba Wallace quieted the doubters and won the Brickyard 400. It was the biggest win of his NASCAR Cup Series career, and a landmark victory for 23XI Racing as a team.

It’s an interesting position for Hamlin to be in, as a driver who’s pining for his first Brickyard 400 win, and an owner who’s No. 23 Toyota ended up in Victory Lane. Afterwards, he was candid about the situation as a whole, speaking on the growth he’s seen out of Wallace, especially in the past year and change.

“When I hired Bubba, and when we first started out, I believed in his capability. Not necessarily the results that he’d shown, but I understood his potential,” Hamlin told the media, via Frontstretch. “Then, there was kind of a time where we were wrestling with, ‘Man, do I want it worse than him?’ Like, I can’t make him want it. That’s going to have to come from within. I think when we started the second team with Kurt [Busch], that pushed him a little bit. When we brought in Tyler [Reddick], that pushed him a little bit more.

“I think he understands that this is a performance-based business. Me and Michael [Jordan] want to win. We’re not out here just to feel cars going around in circles. We want to win. We put a lot of resources into doing that. He’s felt pressure. I think he’s felt the pressure from not only me, but Michael and everyone. You want to perform the best of your teammates. It just seems like, for me, something changed mid-last year.

“You can relate it to having a child or whatever, but something happened mid-last year, where I saw a change in attitude, and then  a change in work ethic. What I’m hoping he takes from this is that hard work pays off. It really does pay off. Hopefully we see more of this.”

It was Wallace’s first win since 2022, and he’s now locked himself into the playoffs for 2025, after missing the dance last season. Something that Hamlin noted has been improved for his wheelman is his ability to stay level-headed, and he believes that directly helped lead to Wallace’s victory in Indiana.

“His peaks and valleys, he shallowed that up. His valleys weren’t as low. It seemed like, on the bad days, he was able to compartmentalize that and think about the positives versus everything sucks all the time. It’s just that’s a tough way to live,” Hamlin added. “We’re in a business that if you can win five percent of the time, you’re a Hall of Famer. You’re going to lose. This is a losing business.

“You have to find happiness in some other way other than actually winning. Mike Ford told me that early in my career. That was the best advice I’ve ever been given. It’s something that certainly needed to be told to Bubba. You’ve got to find these little goals that you can feel good about, because it’s tough out here. We’re going to give you everything that we can for you to go out there and compete.

“I’m going to give you the same car that I’ve got week in, week out, but it’s up to you to put in the work, and it’s up to you to want it, and then let your abilities go from there. It just seems like, over the last 12 months, the performance is definitely better.”

Now that Bubba Wallace has broken his winless streak, perhaps we’ll see him go on a bit of a tear in the coming weeks. Denny Hamlin, already locked into the playoffs with four wins, wouldn’t mind seeing that. Just save one or two for fellow 23XI Racing wheelman Tyler Reddick.