Denny Hamlin to miss NASCAR Cup race in Mexico City

MEXICO CITY — The inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City will be without the series’ most recent winner, Denny Hamlin.

Joe Gibbs Racing confirmed Ryan Truex will drive the No. 11 Yahoo! Toyota in Hamlin’s absence this weekend.

Earlier this week, Hamlin told Prime Video’s Danielle Trotta he wouldn’t go to Mexico City if his fiancé, Jordan Fish, hadn’t delivered their baby by the time drivers left Thursday. Hamlin expressed his priority is “her and the delivery of their third child” as she is more than a week overdue.

Hamlin confirmed Thursday afternoon that Jordan had their son. He stated, “Everyone is doing well” and reiterated his priority is to be home with her “over the next few days when she is able to go home and we transition to life as a family of five.”

Truex is the full-time simulator tester for JGR and is Toyota’s driver in manufacturer test sessions. He was on standby at Michigan – the race Hamlin won. Filling in for Hamlin could be a big breakthrough for Truex, who has three wins, six Top-5 finishes and nine Top-10s in 17 starts for JGR in the past two NASCAR Xfinity Series seasons – but only one national series start this year.

JGR applied for a playoff waiver to remain playoff-eligible. NASCAR changed the rulebook section on waivers to narrow the scope of its use after Kyle Larson chose to miss last year’s Coca-Cola 600 to run the Indianapolis 500 instead. Here is what the rulebook states now:

“If a driver does not start and attempt to complete a Race and wishes to remain eligible for the Playoffs, that driver must request a Playoff waiver via the Playoff Waiver Request. If a Playoff waiver is granted for anything other than a medical reason or age restriction, the driver will forfeit all current and future Playoff Points earned prior to the start of the Playoffs. NASCAR’s decision to grant or decline a Playoff waiver request and subsequent loss of Playoff Points is final and non-appealable.”

We reached out to NASCAR and they confirmed Hamlin will get a medical waiver to keep his playoff points and eligibility intact.

So far, Hamlin has earned 18 playoff points from three race wins and three for three stage wins. If he can hold on to finish third in the championship standings at the end of the regular season, he would get eight more playoff points – allowing him to start the playoffs with 2026 points, in third to only Kyle Larson (2033 so far) and William Byron (2027).

This weekend will be just the sixth Cup race without Hamlin since his debut — 706 races ago at Kansas Speedway in September 2005. Hamlin sat out four races in 2013 due to a back injury sustained at Auto Club Speedway. At that track a year later, Hamlin sat out due to having a piece of glass in his eye.

Hamlin raced in three of the NASCAR Xfinity Series races held at Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the late-2000s. He won in 2006 after leading 40 of 80 laps and finished second to Juan Pablo Montoya a year later.

While Hamlin has winning experience at the track, road courses still aren’t his strong suit. Through 18 road and street course races in the NextGen era, he has just one Top-10 finish and an average finish of 20.8. Missing Mexico City is much less costly than missing Pocono — where he finished second last year, won in 2023 and had the win in 2022 before his car failed tech inspection.