“I love winning here!” Denny Hamlin ends decade long winless streak at Martinsville with record breaking run

Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin ended his 1-year winless streak at Martinsville on Sunday, defeating teammate Christopher Bell.

“I love winning here!” Denny Hamlin ends decade long winless streak at Martinsville with record breaking run

Denny Hamlin wins at Martinsville (Via @SportsonPrime/X)

Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin has finally ended his 31-race winless streak. He won the 2025 Martinsville regular season race, defeating his teammate Christopher Bell and his 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace, surviving multiple threatening restarts. The victory was enough to put him in the championship conversations yet again.

For Denny Hamlin, who was born and brought up just hours away from the track, every grandfather clock win is special. He currently holds the record of most Cup wins by an active racer at the track with six. This was his first win at the track after 10 years, with the fifth one coming in March 2015, putting an end to the streak of disappointments here.

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The three times Daytona 500 winner was over the moon about securing his maiden win of the season, as well as the first win with his new crew chief Chris Gayle. A different approach to the car set-up by the No:11 Toyota Camry crew helped him to lead 274 laps on the way to his 55th career Cup win (11th most of all time).

Chris Gayle, all the engineers, the pit crew, everybody really just deciding they were going to come here with a different approach than the last few years. It was just amazing. It did everything I needed it to do. Just so happy to win with Chris. Gosh, I love winning here.

Denny Hamlin said via ESPN.

What makes the win with Chris Gayle special?

Coming into the 2025 season, the internal restructuring at Joe Gibbs Racing left Denny Hamlin shocked. The team decided to promote long time No:11 crew chief as their competition director and moved Ty Gibbs’ crew chief Gayle to the team.

Chris Gayle
Chris Gayle (Via Jayski)

This put Hamlin in weird situation, as he lost his close associate that helped him to achieve the most success of his career, and had to restart building the whole team dynamic. In Gayle’s own words Hamlin was apprehensive about how he new addition to the team is going to affect them.

But after some races, Hamlin understood why JGR entrusted the No:11 team to Gayle and he used his time after the Martinsville win to highlight this to the fans. There were a lot of noise on the social media about Gayle not being capable enough to lead a championship worthy team.

Chris has had a tough go of it. When we didn’t have a great weekend, social media people were just out to get him. They think he’s been the problem for all of these years. It’s just not the case.

Denny Hamlin said.

Further talking about the point, Hamlin highlighted that having him as the new driver might have made it easier for Gayle to perform. He pointed out how over his career the later often was tasked with leading young and in-experienced racers. Now he finally has someone who is laid back and has the credential.

He’s had the tough task of having such young drivers his whole career. That is really hard to do. I think having someone as laid back as I am for the first time in his career is probably making his job a lot easier.

Denny Hamlin added.

The comments from the future Hall of Famer shows they already have a unique dynamic among them and is determined to push the new partnership to new heights. It will be interesting to see how many more wins the duo can acquire in the coming races.