NASCAR: Could major sponsor development trigger Denny Hamlin move?

FedEx have significantly decreased their involvement in the NASCAR Cup Series in recent years, having gone from a full-time sponsor of Denny Hamlin's No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to only a part-time sponsor of the car, one which has had fewer appearances than absences over the last three-plus seasons.

The transport company has three Daytona 500 wins and dozens of other wins with Hamlin, but they are expected to continue to decrease their involvement in the sport.

According to Sports Business Journal's Adam Stern, the continued sponsorship reduction, which has allowed companies such as Mavis Tires & Brakes, Sport Clips, Interstate Batteries, and Yahoo to serve as the primary sponsor of the No. 11 Toyota on several occasions, could result in a full exit from the sport in the near future.

Hamlin has said that he would like to retire with Joe Gibbs Racing and do so with FedEx, which has been with him throughout his entire career, but at no point has he shut the door on potentially competing for his own team.

Full-season sponsorships deals have become rarer and rarer in the Cup Series. Now with FedEx, the longest standing primary sponsor in the Cup Series, potentially out, and Hamlin's contract, which reportedly makes him one of the highest paid drivers in the series, set to expire at the end of the 2025 season, could he retire for a team other than the team for which he has competed for nearly two decades?

Denny Hamlin to 23XI Racing?

The 54-time race winner co-owns 23XI Racing with NBA legend Michael Jordan, and the team that started because of an online rumor in the summer of 2020 have long been rumored to add a third car by acquiring a charter from Stewart-Haas Racing ahead of the 2025 season.

They recently announced that Bubba Wallace has signed a contract extension to keep him behind the wheel of the No. 23 Toyota, and Tyler Reddick had already been under contract to continue with the team behind the wheel of the No. 45 Toyota.

Riley Herbst and Corey Heim have been linked to a potential third 23XI Racing Toyota in 2025, but there is also a possibility that the team could run it like Joe Gibbs Racing have long run their "star car" in the Xfinity Series, giving multiple drivers the opportunity to drive it throughout the year.

Current Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. has already been talked about as a candidate to compete for the team in the Daytona 500, as he himself is set to retire from full-time Cup Series competition at the end of the year. Hamlin has said that he can make sure a car is available for Truex whenever he wants it.

That approach would certainly make it easier for Hamlin, who is set to become the oldest full-time driver in the Cup Series next year following Truex's retirement, to make the move to 23XI Racing in 2026, since it would not require the team to effectively go into 2025 knowing that they are hiring a new full-time driver for only a single season.

It could also given them a better opportunity to assess who they really want to be their "driver of the future", potentially by giving both Herbst and Heim select opportunities to compete in 2025.

23XI Racing notably have a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, an alliance which was established before the team debuted as a one-car program in 2021, and their performance has reflected it. They expanded to two cars in 2022 and signed Kurt Busch to join Wallace. Reddick replaced Busch in 2023.

They have won races in all four of their Cup Series seasons, and Reddick even won the 2024 regular season championship. So from a performance standpoint, a move to 23XI Racing for Hamlin would be a lateral move at worst, giving him that much more reason to consider it should FedEx leave NASCAR entirely next year.