Prior to Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Phoenix Raceway, you had to go back to mid-August at Richmond Raceway to find the last time Denny Hamlin's position, relative to the championship lead, moved in a positive direction.
He turned a 103-point lead over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs into a 115-point lead over Team Penske's Ryan Blaney in that race. But in all eight races since, he had gone in the wrong direction.
Blaney won at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to trim the deficit to 77. It technically increased back to 89 at Daytona International Speedway, but because Daytona hosted the regular season finale, the post-race points reset meant that Hamlin's lead dropped to 25 before the postseason.
It became just a 12-point lead over teammate Christopher Bell after Bell won at Darlington Raceway and just a nine-point lead over Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson after Larson won at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
Larson took a one-point lead at Bristol Motor Speedway and extended it to 26 with a perfect race (stage sweep, fastest lap, race win) at Kansas Speedway. Hamlin then fell to 40 points back after an unforced error at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, coupled with an impressive Larson second-half bounce-back.
Hamlin finally finished ahead of Larson at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but Larson's stage points meant that he actually extended that lead to 49 points.
Denny Hamlin a big winner at Phoenix, but it could have been (a lot) bigger
After the Phoenix race, Hamlin has trimmed that deficit down to 31, marking the first time in more than two months that he has actually had a positive day in relation to the points lead.
Sure, Hamlin experienced his own disaster at Phoenix. A flat tire and a pit road speeding penalty meant he could only finish six spots ahead of Larson in 28th.
And, for what it's worth, he's no longer second in points; Bell is now second at five behind Larson, with teammate Briscoe third at 24 back. Hamlin dropped all the way to fourth.
But on a day that Larson was never a factor at the front, Hamlin scored 12 stage points with a strong start to the afternoon, so to cut 18 points out of the championship lead on a day that ended the way it ended for Hamlin is about as silver of a silver lining as it gets for a driver trying to go from silver to gold for the first time in his Cup Series career.
If you'd have told him heading into the afternoon that the deficit would drop from 49 to 31, he'd have probably taken it.
Of course, this will only magnify the recent debate about whether the importance of stage points is overinflated, specifically in the postseason, but it is what it is for everybody. Any potential changes would have to come over the offseason.
Hamlin's day is the very kind of day that you have to put behind you quickly as a Cup Series driver, but knowing that there's a pretty significant positive takeaway from what was a complete disaster has to be a positive boost moving into the season's final three races.
Could it have been better? Seeing as how it was Hamlin's worst result since the Daytona 500, uhh, yes, it absolutely could have been and probably should have been.
But it could have been a heck of a lot worse than an 18-point net gain on the championship lead to end an eight-race streak of the No. 11 team going in the wrong direction.
This coming Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway is the first of three straight races set to be shown live on NBC to conclude the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. Live coverage of the YellaWood 500 is set to begin at 2:00 p.m. ET, so begin a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!
Add us as a preferred source on Google