INDIANAPOLIS -- Denny Hamlin will have to go to a backup car for Sunday's Brickyard 400 after a crash in qualifying.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was tracking toward a pole win on Saturday afternoon when disaster struck. He slammed into the outside wall in Turn 2, which spun the No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE. The stock car slid across the track and then slammed nose-first into the inside SAFER barrier.
There's trouble for @dennyhamlin on his qualifying lap! pic.twitter.com/mhYh8tzWLL
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 26, 2025
This second contact spun the No. 11 once again and it slid through the grass. The hard hit crushed the front of Hamlin's car and ensured that his team would not be able to make repairs before Sunday's race.
Once qualifying ended, the majority of teams departed the garage area. The Toyota-affiliated teams, however, all pitched in to help out the No. 11 crew. They headed to Hamlin's garage and began cranking on the backup car to prep it for Sunday.
The Brickyard 400 will mark the second time this season that Hamlin has started last for a Cup Series race. He also started 40th on the streets of Chicago after a major engine failure at the start of practice. Hamlin only completed half of a lap before the engine failure.
The veteran driver has never started last at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, per his career stats. His worst starting position was 33rd in 2019. He finished that race in the sixth position while Kevin Harvick won.
Starting last in a backup car will put Hamlin at an early disadvantage as he tries to check off an important career goal. The Brickyard 400 is the only crown jewel missing from his collection.
If he could win this race, he would join only four other drivers to complete NASCAR's Grand Slam (Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Southern 500, Brickyard 400).
Only Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Harvick, and Dale Earnhardt have won all four of NASCAR's crown jewel races.
"Adding another Crown Jewel would be big, and then to have had them all swept to where we've done it all," Hamlin said on Friday. "I mean certainly the names are very prestigious on that list and so, it would certainly mean a lot to me. It would just be another feather in the cap.
"I don't know what else it would bring to me other than that just little prestige, but certainly, we've come close. I mean we were actually just as close on that road course as we were on the oval, although I don't know you could argue whether that was an actual Crown Jewel or not. Yeah, highly motivated just need things to go our way once."