“People want to poopoo on social media”: Denny Hamlin comes in defense of Joey Logano amid Texas win

Denny Hamlin defended Joey Logano over social media users downplaying the latter's race-winning performance at Texas Motor Speedway. Hamlin said his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate deserved the win despite not dominating last Sunday.

Due to an underwhelming qualifying run, Joey Logano started the Würth 400 at TMS in 27th place. However, Hamlin argued that Logano capitalized on his chances, allowing him to put his #22 Ford Mustang in a position to pull away on the final restart and win the race.

While Denny Hamlin received the first DNF of the race, Logano secured his first win of the 2025 season. The Team Penske driver beat Ross Chastain to the checkered flag by 0.346 seconds, with Ryan Blaney coming home in third.

Speaking about Logano's critics after the Texas win, the #11 JGR driver said (via the Actions Detrimental podcast):

"People want to poopoo on social media of, 'Ughhh, Joey backed into this one'. I don't know that he had a car that was that different than Kyle Larson. But Joey made passes, he had good restarts. It was no accident whatsoever. I think he capitalized. He made the move to win the race." [0:09]

Hamlin thought Logano's Texas win was "legit" despite the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion leading for only seven of 271 laps.

"What people are identifying is that, 'Are you leading laps and winning races?' He's not dominating anything. He's optimizing his days. I thought it was as legit as any of the wins that I've seen him have in his career," the podcast host added. [0:32]

Compared to Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano had a slower start to the year on paper. The Ford pilot only has one top-5 and two top-10s, a far cry from Hamlin's record of five top-5s and six top-10s (including two wins) after 11 races.

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"Maybe it's a durability thing": Denny Hamlin on the incident with his racecar that led to DNF at Texas

Denny Hamlin (#11) is towed into the pits after blowing an engine during the NASCAR Cup Series Wurth 400 - Source: Getty

On the same podcast episode, Denny Hamlin shared his assessment of his own race, particularly on the #11 Toyota Camry. While the 44-year-old has yet to determine the root cause of the engine fire, he suggested the issue might be durability.

The engines found in NASCAR Toyota teams are built by Toyota Racing Development (TRD), the motorsports arm of the Japanese marque. TRD supplies power units to teams like Joe Gibbs Racing, 23XI Racing, and Legacy Motor Club.

The 56-time Cup race winner spoke about his racecar's engine and said:

"Usually, when they light themselves up like that, 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." [57:27]

The race-ending incident resulted in Hamlin's first DNF of the 2025 season. The Toyota pilot finished 38th at Texas Motor Speedway before making it to the end of stage one, meaning he only scored one point out of the race weekend.

NASCAR will be back in action at Kansas Speedway on Sunday. FS1 will commence the TV coverage at 3:00 p.m. ET.