​For much of this decade, Denny Hamlin has focused less on chasing a NASCAR Cup Series title and more on racking up wins. Under the old playoff format, outcomes were largely outside his control due to high variability. Last year, Hamlin dominated the championship race at Phoenix Raceway under the old Final Four format but missed the title because a late caution with three laps remaining changed the course of the race. Kyle Larson went on to claim his second championship, and combined with Jesse Love’s O’Reilly Series triumph over 10-win Connor Zilisch, this helped spur a format change.
Hamlin grabbed the championship lead from Tyler Reddick after Sonoma Raceway, and it now appears he will enter the Chase for the Championship with either a 25-point edge or a 25-point deficit—both scenarios are in play. Is he finally allowing himself to believe a championship is a realistic possibility in his penultimate season?
“I certainly feel like the destination of where you want to go is more in your hands,” Hamlin said Friday at a press conference at Chicagoland Speedway. “The sample size is bigger.” Yet he cautioned, “This thing could come down to a green, white, checkered at Homestead. We don’t know. But there are other races and restarts that happened and counted just the same as the nine races before that.”
He continued, “I like it for that reason, because I don’t think that one freak race or incident or win completely changes the outlook of your championship hopes. I’m very optimistic that, generally, the bigger the data set, the better our chances.”
Currently, Hamlin holds a two-point lead over Reddick and a 104-point cushion over Ryan Blaney heading into the finale. In 2010, he entered the season’s end with a 15-point lead over Jimmie Johnson but was involved in a crash. He has reached the Final Four in 2014, 2019, and 2021—the latter ending in a near-repeat of last year, thwarted by a late caution and pit stop.
For more Motorsport.com articles, visit our website.