Cup Series championship all but out of reach for Hamlin

Denny Hamlin saw the NASCAR Cup Series championship all but slip away for good Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Hamlin finished eighth and retook second place in the championship standings. But the gap is the largest it’s been in the postseason, 73 points, because his rival, Kyle Larson, won the race.

There are only two races remaining.

“Truthfully, they’ve done a lot of things right, and a lot of things have really gone right, and we’ve not done that,” said Hamlin. “So, we’ve got a big old gap, and I think as long as he can keep his four tires on it the next two weeks, he’ll be champion again.”

After starting the Chase as the No. 1 seed, Hamlin lost the points lead to Larson after the third race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Only once, after last weekend at Phoenix Raceway, has the gap decreased to Larson in the weeks since.

Hamlin won four regular-season races but has an average finish of 11.87 in the Chase. Larson has an average finish of 6.5 with three wins in the Chase.

On the final lap of Sunday’s race, Hamlin was in contention for the race win going down the backstretch. With Larson shuffled out of the lead, Hamlin was one of the drivers who moved forward. But as he tried to get to the outside of Austin Hill for second, the two made contact, ending Hamlin’s run.

It was the final nail in Hamlin’s day. The team didn't score stage points, but they had rebounded from a backstretch crash on lap 132 that damaged the nose of his car. Hamlin also missed the second big crash of the day on lap 183.

That second crash set up the run to the overtime finish.

“I wish I could have stayed … with everyone pulling to the top and just letting it go by, I wish I could have been in it,” Hamlin said of the last lap. “But I got clipped by (Hill) there on the bottom line entering Turn 3, and all but wrecked, and that killed all the momentum. Then there is just not enough racetrack to get that momentum back in time.

“Yeah, we ended up P8, which is about what we thought given everyone we’re racing, and that’s just what we got.”