"Maybe it's a durability thing": Denny Hamlin gives his insight on fire in his Toyota at Texas

During the latest episode of Actions Detrimental, Denny Hamlin gave an insight into the fire that ended his race prematurely at Texas. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver found his #11 Toyota Camry in flames towards the end of stage 1.

Speaking about this on his podcast, Hamlin opened up on whether he had any sign of his car catching fire. He revealed that his car 'changed tones' a lap prior to the incident and began to act as if it was running out of fuel. Apart from that, Hamlin said there was no sign or indication of what was to come.

"Usually when they light themselves up like that, it's it just happens, it was a third race on that engine, too, which is I don't know I guess maybe it's a durability thing," Hamlin claimed. [57:08]

This prompted one of the podcast members to ask Denny Hamlin the moment he realized he was on fire. The #11 driver revealed that until he stopped, he didn't 'feel anything', a lot of which was because of the wind that was pushing the fire back behind the car.

Having said that, Hamlin said the smoke got bad quickly to the point where when he eventually came to a halt, the smoke was getting him 'pretty good.'

But despite this unprecedented situation, Denny Hamlin admitted that he doesn't panic except for 'a little bit', because he hasn't been in many such situations before. He continued:

"You just don't want to get burned. I mean, you know, you can feel the heat coming from wherever it's coming from, but it's the smoke is the one thing that I don't want to get in my lungs and stuff like that and you got the safety vehicle people, they're spraying it with with all the substance and whatnot."

Hamlin added that he was able to get out fine at the end of it all.

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Denny Hamlin can't diagnose Toyota's mechanical issues in 2025

Following his early exit from the race at Texas, Denny Hamlin shared his thoughts on the fire that ended his race. Hamlin said that the car was 'blowing up' for a lap or so before it 'really detonated.'

He claimed he tried to keep the car from completely detonating for his team to diagnose what happened to it in the first place. Sharing his thoughts further on Toyota's mechanical plagues so far in 2025, Denny Hamlin said he isn't 'really sure' what's causing them.

"I’ve had blown engines in two or three season in-a-row now where we didn’t have any issues several years prior to that. Just trying to develop I'm guessing and trying to get more," Hamlin described.

He added that they felt the need to get more power, but what eventually ended up happening was 'unexpected' for the team.

With that said, it'll be interesting to see if Toyota can fix its mechanical issues going forward in the 2025 season.