- Denny Hamlin says 2026 has been a success, with four wins and the No. 1 seed in the Chase, even as Kyle Larson sits 73 points clear with two races left (per Motorsport.com).
- The Joe Gibbs Racing driver says he was not engaged in racing for the first five or six races of the year after an offseason that included the death of his father.
- Hamlin says Larson earned his lead over the last 10 races, and Martinsville on Sunday is where Larson can clinch.
From a Brutal Offseason to a 73 Point Gap with Two Races Left
“People would die to have a season like I’ve had this year.”
Hamlin said that this week on Actions Detrimental, his podcast. He was describing a campaign that is about to finish without the championship he has chased for 21 seasons. He is the winningest driver without a Cup Series title, and Larson can clinch the crown Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
Hamlin is even tempered about what looks like one more missed shot.
“I’ll be honest, my offseason was so bad last year that this somewhat exceeded my expectations for the year,” Hamlin said. “For the first, I don’t know, five or six races of the season, I was not even engaged in racing, just not feeling it; just lots of other stuff going on. I think the year has definitely been a success; people would die to have a season like I’ve had this year, and we still have a great shot to win more races before the end of this year in these last two weeks.”
Larson and the Hendrick Motorsports team have run the best Chase.
The Winter Behind the Slow Start
The offseason Hamlin describes came in December 2025. He lost his father, Dennis, in a house fire that month. In the aftermath he re-aggravated a shoulder injury he had suffered before.
That December also brought the end of the antitrust fight his 23XI Racing team had waged against NASCAR. Hamlin co-owns 23XI with Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk, and the three of them emerged from their holding room on day nine of the trial as the sides closed in on a deal. The lawsuit, filed with Front Row Motorsports, had started in the fall of 2024. When the settlement came together on Dec. 11, all parties walked out of the Charles R. Jonas Federal Court House together. The agreement gave 23XI and Front Row evergreen charters. Jordan credited “level heads” for getting the sides there.
Hamlin links his slow start to that winter. In his words, it was “lots of other stuff going on.” A father lost, a shoulder hurt again and a lawsuit to close out made for a crowded winter.
What the Season Looked Like Once He Found His Footing
The numbers tell the rest of the story. In the regular season Hamlin sat third or better in the points standings for all but six weeks. He won four races, including three straight in the summer to take the points lead. Anyone who followed his best season yet knows the shape of that run.
He started the Chase as the No. 1 seed with a 25 point gap on second place. He was the clear favorite to win the first Cup title of his career.
The full season stats back up his case. Hamlin leads the series with 16 top-five finishes, one more than the 15 each for Larson and Christopher Bell. He ties Ryan Blaney for the most top-10 finishes at 22. Only Larson has led more laps than Hamlin, and Hamlin has the third-most stage points in the series. Tyler Reddick leads the series in victories with six, two ahead of Hamlin.
Then the Chase began, and Hamlin’s team ran into self-inflicted mistakes and bad luck. Through the first eight Chase races, Hamlin holds the fourth-best average finish at 11.9, with five top-10s. Larson leads the field at 6.5, with three wins and seven top-10s.
Why He Says Larson Deserves It
Hamlin does not argue with where the standings sit. He tipped his cap to the driver ahead of him.
“I think that if Larson closes it out, he deserved it through the last 10 races,” Hamlin said. The title once came down to the final race, he said. Now the last 10 take precedence over everything else.
He thinks a season long points system would have Larson taking less risk and wrecking less in the regular season. With a reset coming, drivers can take more chances, and Hamlin says that is what the format was designed to do from the start. He adds that “all these Chase races have had an intensity to them” that shows how big each one is.
He gave Larson’s overall year its due as well. Hamlin put the 5 team’s numbers at “Certainly, top three to four overall statistics.” He says Larson’s poor finishes came from things happening to the team, with Phoenix the exception. At Phoenix, Larson earned no stage points, ran outside the top 25 and crashed out, finishing 34th. It was his first finish worse than sixth in the Chase, and it left his lead at only five points.
Talladega changed that. Larson won there for the first time on a superspeedway, took 71 of a possible 76 points while his nine championship pursuers all got involved in crashes. His lead grew to 73 points. After the race Hamlin said, “The 5 is on a massive run at the right time of the year.”
The Chase itself is new again. The format is in its first season after a 12 year hiatus. In the first edition, from 2004 through 2013, the title went undecided until the finale for 10 straight years, and no driver clinched with a race to spare, not even seven time champion Jimmie Johnson. Larson can be the first. As of Friday, a NASCAR data analytics firm put his odds at 36.8 percent to clinch at Martinsville and a 92.3 percent chance to win the title, with the finale at Homestead-Miami on Nov. 8. Larson and Hamlin spent the early Chase in a two man war for the title, and one of them is now the heavy favorite.
Larson is refusing to call it done. “If there’s a stackup on the first lap, I could cave in the radiator and be done,” he said.
Martinsville Is Where Hamlin Is Best
If the title stays open another week, it will happen at Hamlin’s best track. Among active drivers he leads Martinsville in wins with six, top fives with 22 and laps led with 3,014. In March he finished second there after leading 292 of 500 laps with the fastest car. After Phoenix, the track became a must win for Hamlin.
The task is steeper this time. Larson has eight straight top-10 finishes at Martinsville and won there in 2023. Hendrick Motorsports has more wins at the 0.526-mile oval than any team in NASCAR history, with 31. The Joe Gibbs Racing trio of Hamlin, Bell and Chase Briscoe are the only realistic title contenders left. Bell is 74 points behind Larson and Briscoe is 79 back. Joey Logano, fifth in the standings, trails by 100.
As of Thursday, Hamlin could win both remaining races and still have only about a 60 percent statistical chance of taking the championship. This is his planned second to last season in the Cup Series, and it adds another “what could have been” campaign to a list that is already long.
Two Sundays Left
In his mind it is still a race for second place, and he has two Sundays to win more races before the season closes. Martinsville comes first, at 2 p.m. ET. Homestead-Miami finishes the year on Nov. 8.
Hamlin has already called 2026 a success. A win at Martinsville, where he led 292 of 500 laps in March, would give the season one more line in his favor.
