Honestly, could you blame him?
Denny Hamlin suffered a heartbreaking loss in the NASCAR Cup Series championship race after dominating much of the race and appearing to be on his way to winning his elusive first championship after 20 years of trying and 20 years of frustration. (Does that sound familiar, NASCAR fans?)
The #11 car had checked out to a 3-second lead with just three laps to go in the race. But the #24 car of William Byron blew a tire and hit the wall, taking him out of contention for the championship and setting up a green-white-checkered overtime finish to decide the 2025 Cup Season championship.
The other three championship contenders, Hamlin, Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe, all came to pit road for new tires. But Larson only took two tires, and got out ahead of Hamlin, who took four new tires.
On the final restart, Larson lined up 5th while Hamlin was stuck back in 10th. And the two laps just wasn’t enough to work his way back in front of the #5 car, with Larson finishing 3rd to win his second NASCAR Cup Series championship despite not leading a lap all day and even going a lap down following a blown tire earlier in the race.
It was obviously heartbreaking for Denny, who has tried for 20 years to win a championship after winning 60 races in the Cup Series. He also revealed earlier this week that his father is terminally ill, and that he was hoping to win this year because it would be the last chance his dad had to see him win a championship.
But it just wasn’t meant to be.
And look, Kyle Larson was deserving of a championship this year. He won three races this season, and was tied for the most second place finishes, top fives and top 10s. There were five races where he led the most laps, and he scored the most points of any driver this season, so even if we didn’t have the stupid elimination playoff format, Larson was a worthy champion and had a championship-caliber season.
The reason so many are disappointed in the result isn’t because he isn’t deserving based on the entire season. But under the format, it all ended up coming down to an overtime finish as a result of a blown tire, and the car that dominated all day didn’t win because of something not in his control.
This tweet sums it up:
After the race, Denny sat in his car looking defeated before finally climbing out. And as you can imagine, he was heartbroken over being so close to a championship and having it ripped out of his hands by another car blowing a tire.
Denny even said that in the moment, he didn’t have any desire to get into a race car again:
Now, it would be easy to brush his comments off as just disappointment and frustration in the heat of the moment. But we’ve also seen in the past that heartbreak like that cause a driver to step away from the sport.
Back in 2016, Carl Edwards had the championship all but locked up until a late-race caution and a wreck on the ensuing restart ended his championship hopes in heartbreaking fashion. (Sound familiar?)
And in the offseason, Carl shocked the NASCAR world by announcing that he was retiring from the sport, a decision that left many fans scratching their heads but which Edwards later admitted was ultimately driven by the realization that it might not be worth it to fight all year for a championship when you can do everything right and have it taken from you by something outside of your control:
“I’m going to get to Homestead at the end of 2017, I’m going to do everything just right, and they’re going to throw a caution with five to go? And we’re going to put all this on a restart?
And I thought, ‘Damn, I don’t know if spending a whole year of my life and all the things you give up and possibly give up for one restart?’”
So could Denny pull a Carl Edwards and decide that it’s not worth it anymore? Well a lot of fans seem to think that he might do just that:
Denny has said in the past that he plans to retire at the end of his current contract, which runs through the 2027 season. But it would be far from unprecedented for him to decide that he doesn’t want to do this anymore and hang it up now.
Of course there are some other factors too: NASCAR has already confirmed that the playoff format will be changing next year, with the one race “winner-take-all” format being replaced by a longer round to determine the champion. (We still don’t know whether it will be a full 36-race season format, which seems unlikely, or a 10 race playoff, or a 3 or 4 race final round). So it’s possible that Denny sees that it’s changing and decides to stick around knowing that something like this (hopefully) won’t be possible in the new format.
And Denny is also more invested in NASCAR than Edwards was. He’s got his own race team, 23XI Racing, which he co-owns with NBA legend Michael Jordan. He also happens to be suing NASCAR with 23XI, so what happens with the team and the sport are also dependant on the outcome of the lawsuit.
If you had to ask me right now, I think Denny comes back for the final two seasons of his contract. He’s a fierce competitor who desperately wants to win a championship to cap off his Hall of Fame career. He’s inarguably one of the greatest drivers to never win a championship, and there’s no doubt Denny doesn’t want to retire in that club.
But man…I completely understand how a day like yesterday would completely break a guy.
We’ll have to wait and see what Denny’s plans are for the future, and I’m sure we’ll learn more about his thinking on this week’s episode of his podcast, Actions Detrimental.
But it would be a real shame if this playoff format drove two of the sport’s best drivers out of NASCAR.
If it does though, get ready, because it might be Heim Time in the #11 car.
