NASCAR: 5 highest paid Cup Series drivers of 2022
By Asher Fair
Highest paid NASCAR drivers: No. 2 – Denny Hamlin
With 48 career victories, Denny Hamlin holds the unwanted title of being the winningest non-champion in NASCAR Cup Series history among drivers who ever competed full-time.
He broke Mark Martin’s record of 40 back in the 2020 season, when he won seven races. He still trails Junior Johnson, who won 50 races, but Johnson never competed full-time. In fact, Johnson only ran more than half the races in seven of his 14 seasons in the sport.
Even so, the 42-year-old Chesterfield, Virginia native appears poised to break Johnson’s record at some point in the very near future, having won multiple races in each of the last four seasons.
However, Hamlin has been very clear in the past that he won’t judge his career as a success or a failure based on whether or not he wins a championship, given the way championships are decided in this day and age. It’s quite clear that his career has been a success.
He is set to enter his 18th consecutive season with Joe Gibbs Racing. No active driver has been with his team for longer, and a lot of that has to do with his successful longstanding partnership with FedEx.
Hamlin is the third winningest active Cup Series driver and sits in a 16th place tie on the all-time wins list with his 48 wins. Three of those wins are Daytona 500 wins, and no other active driver has won the “Great American Race” more than once.
He is also a three-time Southern 500 winner, and he won the Coca-Cola 600 for the first time last May. In fact, with that win, he has now won at least one crown jewel race in six of the last seven seasons. The only year he didn’t win one during that span was 2018, when he didn’t win any races for the first time in his 17-year career.
Denny Hamlin salary: $13,100,000