Cup Series title or not, Hamlin says ‘people would die to have a season like I’ve had this year’

With his chances of winning the NASCAR Cup Series championship now highly unlikely, Denny Hamlin hopes to at least keep things honest over the next two weeks.

But it’s still a race for second place in his mind.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver feels it is undisputed that he’s had the best season of any driver, with four wins and being the No. 1 seed going into the postseason. However, Kyle Larson and his Hendrick Motorsports team have had the best Chase. And now, as things wind down, Larson could clinch the title Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, with a 73-point advantage over Hamlin.

“I’ll be honest, my offseason was so bad last year that this somewhat exceeded my expectations for the year,” Hamlin said on his podcast, Actions Detrimental, this week. “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.”

Hamlin lost his father, Dennis, in a house fire in December. In the aftermath, he re-aggravated a previous shoulder injury. The tragedy came a week after 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports settled their antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR, which started in the fall of 2024.

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 during the summer to take the point lead. Hamlin started the Chase with a 25-point gap on second place.

But the numbers have been clear through the first eight races. Larson leads the field with a 6.5 average finish, including three wins and seven top-10 finishes. Hamlin has the fourth-best average finish at 11.9 with five top-10 finishes.

“I think that if Larson closes it out, he deserved it through the last 10 races, and that is what matters in our sport,” said Hamlin. “It used to be the last race as the one that matters. Then it’s the last 10 that take precedence over everything else. To me, I would think that if it was a season-long points format, then the (No.) 5 probably takes less risk and wrecks less during the regular season. But if you know there is always going to be a reset, then it allows you to take more chances, which is what the whole system was designed to do in the beginning: ‘Hey, we want these drivers going all out all the time.’

“I can tell you, all these Chase races have had an intensity to them that shows you the importance of them and that it’s huge. I just think the format allows you to get hot and win a championship in what seemingly, statistically, maybe aren’t the strongest years that you had, and that’s racing. But I’ll say this, though: you still look at his overall stats, and they’re still pretty damn strong. Certainly, top three to four overall statistics. I think the average finish is maybe high, but that’s those ups and downs. If he finishes 30th, that’s not because he ran 30th. Except for Phoenix. It’s because they had stuff happen.”

Tyler Reddick leads the series with six victories to Hamlin’s four. Hamlin and Ryan Blaney lead the series in top-10 finishes (22), while Hamlin leads the series in top-five finishes (16 to the 15 of Larson and Christopher Bell).

Hamlin has led the second-most laps to Larson and has the third-most stage points in the series.