Denny Hamlin Declares 23XI Racing Is in NASCAR Big-3 “Neighborhood”

23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin believes his team is on the levels of the big-three this season, after their strong start to 2026.

Denny Hamlin Declares 23XI Racing Is in NASCAR Big-3 “Neighborhood”

23XI Racing co-owners Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan (Image via NRF Productions/X)

When Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan started 23XI Racing, one of the main goals were to get a seat among the big-3 of the sport, Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing. With Tyler Reddick winning four of the first six races of the 2026 season, it seems they are closer to achieving that goal than they’ve ever been.

On the latest episode of his podcast, veteran JGR driver and 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin talked about the goal. He admitted that with the dream start they have had to the season, they are in the Big-3 neighborhood. The multimillion investment in the crew, drivers and state-of-the-art 114,000-square-foot AirSpeed race shop played key roles in the success.

We’re in the neighborhood. We’ve got the framing up, foundation’s built, sticks are going up, walls — roof is soon to follow.

Denny Hamlin said on his podcast.

Further talking about the point and responding to senior journalist Jeff Gluck’s claim on his podcast that 23XI can’t be put over the likes of Team Penske, Denny Hamlin pointed out that so far in 2026 they are in the top 3 right now. But the veteran did admit that if they are talking about the team’s overall performance since inception, they are nowhere close to the Roger Penske’s team.

If you’re talking about just this year, then he’s wrong. If he’s talking about over the course of the first six [years], he’s right, because we’ve been around for six and Penske’s won more races, they’ve won a couple of championships, at least. So, Jeff is right if we’re talking about since our inception. If we’re talking about 2026, then he’s wrong.

Denny Hamlin responded via Actions Detrimental.

Kevin Harvick sends a clear warning to HMS about Denny Hamlin’s 23XI Racing

On his latest podcast episode, Kevin Harvick talked about the absolute domination of 23XI Racing, while the likes of Hendrick Motorsports struggle. HMS is the only team among the big-that failed to win a race this season and other than a handful of run they have not produced big runs.

Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick
Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick (Via IMAGO)

We would expect Kyle Larson to be contending for the win. We go to Las Vegas last week, the Gibbs cars made some mistakes and put themselves behind early in the race — that gave those Hendrick cars a little bit of a chance to take control of the race, but we never saw those Chevrolets up front this week.

Kevin Harvick said via SPEED with Harvick and Buxton.

One the major reason behind their struggle is the fact that they Chevy introduced new car body for the 2026 season, which also marked horsepower increase as well as downforce reduction. This affected their development and being the big side of Chevy, HMS was affected the most.

They’ve got a new body this year that seems to have thrown them for a little bigger loop than I think anyone anticipated as far as the balance goes on the race car. With all the new rules and all the things that are happening in the Cup with lower downforce, more horsepower at a lot of these racetracks, it seems that they are going to take a little bit longer to wrap their arms around…

Kevin Harvick added.

They have to get their car development back on track soon, as they might not be able to match the pace of 23XI cars if they continue the upward growth in the remaining races of the year. It would be interesting to see how long it will take HMS to win their first race of 2026.

Also Read: Denny Hamlin Gives Major Update on Tyler Reddick New Contract as 2026 Domination Continues