After having gone without victory in the last 18 races of last season, a key question entering this year was when Joe Gibbs Racing would win again.
The consecutive victories of Denny Hamlin in Martinsville and Darlington give JGR five victories in the first eight races of this season.
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The question is now whether Joe Gibbs Racing is the best team nearly a third of the path throughout the regular season.
“I do not think we were, unless (Martinsville was) of domination, but there were not many dominant victories of Gibbs this year,” said Hamlin after his victory for Darlington. “(Martinsville) was one of the only ones.
“You see (Christopher) Bell in Phoenix dominated. I see it as we had twice that we had the best car, we won the race. Then we had other things that fell our way. ”
Hamlin led 274 of the last 275 laps to win in Martinsville. Bell led a top of 105 of the 312 laps to win in Phoenix.
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In the other three JGR victories this season, the team led very few laps. Bell only led the last round to Atlanta (JGR led only 2.3% of this race). Bell led eight laps on the circuit of the Americas – the only towers that JGR led to the 95 -round event. Hamlin only led 10 of the 297 laps in his Darlington victory.
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Even with the success of JGR, William Byron by Hendrick Motorsports led the points before Sunday race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The four Hendrick pilots are in the top 10 in points: Byron (first), Chase Elliott (fourth), Kyle Larson (sixth) and Alex Bowman (10th).
A year ago, Byron won three of the first eight races. This year, he won a victory but has more ends among the first five (four this year to three last year) and led more tricks this year (354) compared to last year (149).
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“I have the impression that we are a much stronger team this year,” said Byron after leading 243 rpm on the way to finish second in Darlington last weekend. “I do not feel like I had this performance last year in the United States. We won races (last year), of course, but they were mainly by capitalizing at the end of the race or things like that, or just have a good track position.”
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While Hendrick has the four pilots in the top 10 points, Joe Gibbs Racing has two of his four pilots in the top 10: Hamlin has passed from the eighth to the second in the last two weeks with his victories and Bell is third.
23xi Racing has two of his pilots in the top 10: Tyler Reddick is fifth and Bubba Wallace is eighth.
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The Penske team has two pilots in the top 10: Ryan Blaney is seventh and Joey Logano is ninth.
“It’s the same crowd every year,” said Elliott last weekend in Darlington when he was asked at what time of the season he assesses who are the suitors in the solid title. “We don’t have to beat in the bush. It will be the same people who will be good in the last 15 weeks of the year.
“The people who are good at the moment will be better. It’s like that. It will be the same crowd, as always, when we get there. ”
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