NASCAR: Denny Hamlin’s biggest playoff concern

Denny Hamlin told Beyond the Flag his biggest concern as the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs progress and who he believes will be his biggest challenger.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin entered the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs as one of the favorites to win the championship, having won six races and racked up 47 playoff points throughout the 26-race regular season.

Both totals ranked second only to Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, who has been in the Championship 4 in five of its six seasons and won the first title decided using the new format back in 2014. He won seven regular season races and racked up 57 playoff points.

The driver of the #4 Ford won the playoff opener at Darlington Raceway this past Sunday to run those series-high totals up to eight and 62 on the year.

More from NASCAR Cup Series

• NASCAR Cup Series: New team set to compete in 2024
• NASCAR: Surprising name continuously linked to new seat
• NASCAR driver at risk of missing the Daytona 500?
• NASCAR set for rare appearance last seen 13 years ago
• NASCAR team adds third car, names driver for 2024 Daytona 500

Hamlin qualified for the Championship 4 for the first time since 2014 last season after winning six races following a winless 2018 campaign, his first winless season through 13 years as a full-time driver.

He admits that he doubted his ability to get back to this level, one that has seen him tied with Harvick in the wins category with 12 since the 2019 season began.

“I think you always have doubts if you go a whole season without winning,” Hamlin told Beyond the Flag. “It seemed like we would always qualify good in ’18, but we just didn’t run and finish that well. I hate the word luck in racing because I think you make your own luck. We didn’t have bad luck; we just didn’t perform good.

“It prompted changes within the organization, and they turned out to be pretty good. We found something between me and [crew chief] Chris [Gabehart] that is working really, really well, and we’re just going to keep riding that horse as long as it keeps spitting out wins. It’s been a great relationship, but to say that I could’ve predicted having six wins last year and already six wins this year, it would’ve been a hard thing to predict.”

Hamlin finished in 13th place in the playoff opener, but he still has a sizable gap over the round of 12 cut line heading into this Saturday night’s race at Richmond Raceway due to the stage points he accrued at Darlington Raceway and the massive amount of playoff points he accrued throughout the regular season.

In fact, he entered the playoffs with a 43-point gap over the round of 12 cut line. That gap grew by 11 points at Darlington Raceway and is now a 54-point margin.

“I think that we did a great job of collecting stage points in the first part of Darlington, which allowed us to, even though we finished 13th, we still built on our point cushion over the cut line,” Hamlin said. “We’re going to look to do that same thing at Richmond. The results will fall where they may, but you want to get off of the blocks quickly, and get stage points in those first couple stages to then not put the pressure on you to have to go out there and win the race to have a good points day.

“I hate talking about points because I want to win each and every week. That’s my goal, and I won’t treat this race any differently. It’s to go out there and do everything we can to win.”

The Cup Series was slated to have run at the four-turn, 0.75-mile (1.207-kilometer) Richmond Raceway oval in Richmond, Virginia back on Sunday, April 19, but that race was relocated to Darlington Raceway on Sunday, May 17 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Having not run with the new short track package at Richmond Raceway back in April as scheduled, Hamlin, a three-time winner at the venue, isn’t too concerned.

“It doesn’t change a whole lot,” he stated. “I’m very optimistic any time I go to Richmond just simply because my driving style seems to fit that race track well. I’m going to probably have to beat my teammates to do it. They seem like they’ve been really, really strong at Richmond over the last few years.”

Kyle Busch won both races at the track in 2018, and Martin Truex Jr. won both races at the track in 2019.

“I’m going to do my best to try to keep up with them,” Hamlin continued. “I think we’re starting sixth or seventh, somewhere in there. So we’ll be pretty good and I’m confident that we can have a great day, pad our points, and hopefully lock ourselves into the next round after we get done with Richmond.”

Above all, however, Hamlin is confident with the new short track package in general, especially after the March race at Phoenix Raceway, the site of this year’s season finale.

He remains confident despite the fact that he was caught up in an early wreck at the track back in March and only managed a 20th place finish.

“No, we didn’t [get enough data from March],” he said. “I got caught up in an early wreck on a restart, but yeah I am confident. I think that can be a really good track for us. What I always look to to predict my future is that, how have I run on that there previously? And the last race we had on that tire was at New Hampshire, where me and Brad [Keselowski] kind of dominated that race.

“So I think that if we can get to the final four, we’re going to have a great shot. I’m confident that we’ve made the adjustments in our car to go back there and contend for a win.”

But to get there, Hamlin knows that he will need survive what he expects to be a challenging round of 12, given the three tracks that are in it. While he may enter the second round with a huge gap over the round of 8 cut line, these three venues are known to eat up those kinds of gaps.

“For us, no question it’s that second round, it’s the most concerning round,” he admitted. “Everyone will talk about Talladega and how ‘wild card’ it is, and you can get caught up in a wreck there. We know the superspeedways are very tough to predict.

“The [Charlotte Motor Speedway] Roval, to me, is equally as tough to predict as a superspeedway is, and then Las Vegas has just been really our Achilles heel with our whole race team at JGR, to be honest with you, through the course of my career.”

In 17 starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Hamlin has never won and has just one finish higher than fifth place. He has finished no higher than 10th in his last five starts there, and his average finish during that span is a disappointing 18.2.

“So hopefully we make strides on that,” he continued. “Anywhere that we typically race at and then go back to, we’re pretty good. So I’m not as scared about Vegas as what I’ve been in years past, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Hamlin finished in 17th place at the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Las Vegas, Nevada back in February.

Finally, Hamlin knows that even though the 2020 season has largely been the Harvick vs. Hamlin show, with those two drivers having combined for 14 of the 27 victories thus far, the Championship 4 is slated to feature at least two drivers not named Hamlin or Harvick.

He believes that outside of Harvick, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott is his biggest threat.

“I think Chase Elliott,” he said. “People have been talking about him a lot here in the last week. I think the round of 8 really suits him well. I think that those are all really good tracks for him.”

The round of 8 includes races at Kansas Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway.

“Kyle Busch is slowly but surely ramping his way up into contention,” Hamlin continued. “Martin Truex has been very rock solid over the last two months now. I think there are essentially like seven or eight guys that are going to be battling for those final four spots.”

Saturday night’s race at Richmond Raceway, the Federated Auto Parts 400, is set to be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET.