NASCAR Cup Series: Denny Hamlin building toward championship run

Through the first six races of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, Denny Hamlin is silently and methodically building toward a championship run.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin is widely considered the top active driver in the NASCAR Cup Series who has never won a championship, and justifiably so.

The 38-year-old Chesterfield, Virginia native has earned a total of 32 victories over the course of his Cup Series career, and up until last season, he had earned at least one victory in each of his 12 seasons as a full-time driver in the series.

Hamlin finished in a career-high second place in the 2010 championship standings behind Jimmie Johnson, who is now one of only three seven-time champions in Cup Series history. Only three times in 13 seasons as a full-time driver has he finished outside of the top nine.

More from NASCAR Cup Series

The driver of the #11 Toyota entered the 2019 season having not won a race since he won at Darlington Raceway in September of 2017, meaning his win drought had reached 47 races in length. But he opened up the 2019 season by winning the 61st annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

While he hasn’t finished in higher than fifth place in any of the five races that have been contested since he earned his second career Daytona 500 victory and his second victory in the race in the last four seasons, Hamlin is clearly in the process of silently and methodically building toward a championship run.

Rarely is a driver considered a true championship contender when his only victory in an extended period of time, in Hamlin’s case, a 53-race span, is a victory in a restrictor plate race, especially when said driver is coming off of the first winless season of his career and one of the worst seasons of his career in many major statistical categories despite the fact that he drives for arguably the top team in the sport.

But Hamlin is a clear exception.

While he hasn’t finished in the top four since earning his first victory since 2017, Hamlin has only finished outside of the top 10 once, and that one instance resulted in a more than respectable 11th place finish for him.

Hamlin’s average finish through the season’s first six races is an impressive 6.50, which trails only the average finishes of the two drivers who have won two Cup Series races so far this season (Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch, 2.67 average finish, and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski, 6.33 average finish).

Through this consistency and the fact that he has racked up 58 stage points, which ranks fifth on among the stage point totals of all drivers, Hamlin sits in second place in the championship standings through the season’s first six races. He trails only Busch, whose start to the 2019 season has been historically impressive in that he has earned two victories and his only non-top three finish is a sixth place finish, and he trails him by only 21 points (273 to 252).

Make no mistake about it; Hamlin may not be the flashiest driver on the track, as he has only led 45 laps this season, a total that trails the laps led totals of 10 other drivers, and he isn’t making a habit of finishing every race in the top three like Busch is.

But he is silently and methodically building toward a championship run, and while his 2018 season undoubtedly made it seem like his days as a regular frontrunner were in the books, he is hungrier than he has ever been to get the job done.

Next. Top 10 NASCAR drivers of all-time. dark

Whether or not Denny Hamlin becomes crowned NASCAR Cup Series champion for the first time in his career this year remains to be seen with only six of the 36 races on the 2019 schedule in the books, but based on what he has accomplished to open up the season, it is clear that he has no plans of giving up his championship aspirations just yet.

Home/NASCAR Cup Series