Stop if you've heard this one before. It's Denny Hamlin's year.
It's only been said about 20 different times, and it's never happened. The driver of the No. 11 car has come agonizingly close on multiple occasions, most notably last fall when he was two laps away before a late caution threw a wrench into the finish. But this time, it's for real.
At least, it had better be. Because as the All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway showed us, Hamlin's team is simply on another planet from the rest of the field.
Everything is in place for Denny Hamlin to finally capture his elusive Cup Series championship, and it's up to him to finish the job
Tyler Reddick has been the one snatching up all the NASCAR Cup Series wins in 2026, but Hamlin has had the fastest car week in and week out on virtually every non-drafting oval.
He has led the most laps in the series with 624, and that's not even including the 103 he led in Sunday's exhibition event. His race team has executed masterfully, seldom ever forcing their driver into adverse positions on the track (unlike some top competitors).
Hamlin will also benefit from the changes to the playoff format, which returns to the 10-event Chase for the Cup. No longer are title contenders forced to hinge their hopes upon performing in only one race, which as we saw last year, can end up being reduced to a two-lap overtime strategy derby. The title isn't going to be decided by William Byron blowing a tire this time around.
And of course, over the final 10 races, there are no road course races and only one drafting track race, both types of circuits where Hamlin has struggled mightily at during the Next Gen era. The No. 11 team has been especially dominant on 1.5-mile intermediate tracks, and the Chase is set to feature four of those, along with three more tracks (Darlington Raceway, World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, and Martinsville Speedway) where the Joe Gibbs Racing driver won in 2025.
Obviously, it's still early in the season, and there is plenty of time for the field to catch up to Hamlin and Toyota in general. But historically, JGR has only gotten better throughout the year. There's no reason to think their speed advantage will go away anytime soon, and if it doesn't, the Chesterfield, Virginia native will likely start racking up wins in bunches.
This is the opportunity Hamlin has waited more than two decades for. No one in NASCAR has life easier than he does right now, with a situation that probably at least a half-dozen drivers could cakewalk to a championship in. We'll see if he's one of them.
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