Hamlin leaves Homestead empty handed, but with head held high

One year after being shell-shocked in the NASCAR Cup Series season finale, Denny Hamlin held his head high Sunday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“It was a good day,” Hamlin said after finishing sixth. “We performed well, got our car better as the day went on, got it better from where it was Friday; we were competitive, and that’s all you can ask for. Obviously, it didn’t work there, but I knew that there was really not much to lose by going for it as hard as I could and got in the wall when I did.”

Hamlin, 70 points behind, needed to win the finale to give himself a chance to overtake Kyle Larson in the Cup Series championship fight (depending on how Larson’s night went). Realistically, Hamlin had conceded the title coming into the weekend. So, the goal, according to him on Friday afternoon, was to have fun and try to win the race.

Larson clinched the title in the first stage. Hamlin’s No. 11 team, still trying to win the race, also shifted to beating Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell for second in the final championship standings.

The final run to the finish was eight laps when the third and final caution of the race, and final caution on the season, flew with 15 laps to go. Hamlin came off pit road second to William Byron and restarted alongside him on the front row. Both quickly fell to Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick.

Hamlin then caught the wall in Turns 3 and 4 with a handful of laps to go.

“I feel good about it,” Hamlin said. “That was as competitive as we’ve been at this track in quite a few years. I knew it was over at the end of stage one, but I still thought that we put together a pretty good race and gave ourselves a chance on those last few laps. It just didn’t quite work out.

“I thought that it was a great run. We got the CEO of Progressive here, and that’s a big, big deal. I wanted to have a great run for them and end the year on a good note, and I felt like we ended it as competitive as what we were at the beginning of the year.”

Ultimately, Hamlin finished third in the final championship standings. The No. 1 seed coming into the Chase, he lost the points lead to Larson after the third race and never regained it.

“Nothing,” Hamlin said about how he felt about losing out on the championship. “I wish I could say it was something, but I can put a hand on a Bible and say I felt absolutely nothing.”

And on the new champion, Hamlin said, “An exceptional talent. He’s this generation’s Jimmie [Johnson], right? I think that’s the only way you can kind of describe it. When it comes to playoff time, they perform their best, and that’s something that Jimmie used to do, and Jimmie was a guy who could get tons of speed out of the car. Kyle is the same way. You could argue even more speed.

“There is a little bit more variance in the results because of how hard he pushes it, but he reaps the benefits because he gets lots of wins. He’s certainly going to be winning championships and races well beyond when I’m gone from here.”