Austin Cindric Refuses Claims That Denny Hamlin and JGR Has 2025 Cup Playoff “Under Control”

Team Penske driver Austin Cindric doesn’t think Denny Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing hasn’t yet 100% established themselves as 2025 championship favorite.

Austin Cindric Refuses Claims That Denny Hamlin and JGR Has 2025 Cup Playoff “Under Control”

Denny Hamlin and Austin Cindric (Via IMAGO and @Team_Penske/X)

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Toyota giants Joe Gibbs Racing started the 2025 Cup Season playoffs strong with back-to-back in the playoffs. Chase Briscoe won the opener at Darlington and Denny Hamlin won at Gateway, with almost all of their teammates finishing inside the top-10. But for Team Penske Racing’s Austin Cindric it isn’t enough evidence crown them as true favorites for final four.

In the latest episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Guest Austin Cindric who is fighting to continue Penske’s Cup domination analyzed the JGR threat they are facing at the moment. The team has won 10 of the 28 races so far this year, with Denny Hamlin being the front runner. But Cindric still has doubts owing how the playoffs often playout.

The star driver pointed out that considering everything he has seen from different drivers and teams’ it is hard to pick a championship favorite. Though the JGR driver are the strongest performing at the moment, it hard to predict if their can consistently give them solid cars in the remaining eight races of the season.

You look at the season, it’s really hard to pick [a championship favorite]. The ebbs and flows of who’s at dominate strength, I mean, right now, it’s the Gibbs guys. They’ve started the playoffs off extremely strong with all their playoff cars. But in eight weeks’ time, is that still the same? That’s my biggest question.

Austin Cindric said via Door Bumper Clear podcast.

Talking specifically about Denny Hamlin, the winningest driver of the season with five victory lane visit, and the most inform racer, Cindric pointed out that the veteran is chasing both the title as well as a historic 60th Cup win. So, it’s hard to make an assertion that he is the favorite and their team got everything under control this early in the season.  

From what I’ve heard from him talking, Denny sounds just as motivated to get 60 [wins] as he is to get a championship, so it should be interesting to see how that all plays out. I’m not gonna just sit here after the first two playoff races and think, ah, Gibbs has it under control.

Austin Cindric added.

Bubba Wallac’s spotter assess’ Denny Hamlin’s championship chances

During the same conversation, Freddie Kraft, who works as the spotter for Denny Hamlin’s 23XI driver Bubba Wallace shared his thoughts on the No:11 team’s performance. He admitted that Hamlin will be winning his 60th race in 2025 but making it to the finale and winning it will be tough, considering how clutch Team Penske are in such moments.

Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin (Via IMAGO)

I think he does win at least one more [race] before the season ends, but Phoenix is hard. Phoenix is going to be tough because there’s an organization that the guy to my left [Austin Cindric] drives for that’s been pretty (expletive) good there for the last three years and we just need to hope that we can somehow shove them out of the final four to give us a better shot at it.

Freddie Kraft said.

The No:11 team and the driver is on a roll at the moment. They seem have found the total package for success with consistent front raw finishes as well as solid qualifying. But they have to keep the momentum going for the next two months, delivering at the right time and producing good cars to finally win the championship they have desperately been searching since 2019.

Also Read: Austin Cindric Argues NASCAR Playoffs “Will Never Satisfy” Everyone