Hamlin talks about TRD engines
What do you think about the decision to use the TRD engine beginning this weekend?
Hamlin: "We talked about asking TRD (Toyota Racing Development). You have to understand, this is a big favor to ask a manufacturer to provide engines for us for the rest of the year. It's a lot of manpower, a lot of work had to be done, especially within JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). There's a lot of work that had to be done to get this engine imported into our car. So, we were going to have to ask and pull a lot of favors to do it. We just asked them if they'd be willing to do it and they did. I was behind it 100 percent. I felt like it was the right thing to do.
Ultimately what matters is results. Things happen, engines blow — things happen like that — but we felt like they've worked out a lot of reliability issues that they had early on. If we were going to make the Chase, we could not afford DNFs because of engine failures and on top of that, we couldn't afford to keep starting in the back every week because of engine failures. I didn't help us out last week, but we started in the back I think four times because of blown engines. That's just too hard to over come, especially with as hard as it is today to win a race."
How do you think using the TRD engines will help you for the remainder of the season?
Hamlin: "It's a tough balance because you have some employees that take a lot of pride in their work. When you ultimately switch, some people's feelings get hurt sometimes. We have to do what we have to do to make sure we finish races at this point. Being on the bubble, we cannot afford any DNFs. We're just doing what we have to do. I hate to say it. Toyota is our partner in this whole thing. When we joined them in 2008, they said anything you need, we're going to give it to you. This is a huge request and obviously it's come to this point and hopefully it works out." Toyota Racing