Denny Hamlin got honest about his chances of winning his first NASCAR Cup Series championship this year. Entering the third race of the Chase this Saturday night at Bristol, the driver of the No. 11 leads the standings by nine points over Kyle Larson.
While the 45-year-old has maintained the points lead, he has not lit the world on fire in the Chase. Hamlin finished 18th in the Chase opener at Darlington after contact with Michael McDowell caused toe link issues.
Last Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway, Hamlin posted a ninth-place finish in a crash-filled race.
Hamlin on championship hopes: ‘We have to get better’
On the most recent episode of his “Actions Detrimental” podcast, Hamlin was blunt in saying that they need better execution in the coming races.
“We just have to get better, you know what I mean? We’ve got to have mistake-free races, I got to do a better job on the restarts — just got to execute a day. It’s just been tough going back where we’ve gone back at that time of the race and not having enough time to really claw it back,” he said.
Despite the slow start to the Chase, the 64-time Cup Series winner is pleased to have maintained the points lead through the first two races and believes the upcoming tracks bode well for his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team.
“I feel very fortunate. I said that I felt blessed to still have the lead. I believe that but I feel like our notebook that’s very solid from here on out. It’s all tracks that we ran mostly in the spring. Got that information, take it, learn from it — should be better,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin was not as confident going into Darlington and Gateway as he is the remaining tracks in the Chase. However, the JGR star believes he overachieved at Darlington, yet failed to maintain track position at Gateway.
“We were definitely better at Darlington than what we had been over the last two years. Then, here [Gateway], obviously not as good as last year but we also kept our track position last year. When you keep your track position, man, the races seem a lot, a lot easier,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin said execution, restarts have to be better
The speed was there for Hamlin in the Chase opener at Darlington. Unfortunately for the Virginia native, they were unable to capitalize.
Ultimately, execution was where the three-time Daytona 500 winner was lacking.
“I think execution is far what’s hindering us the most on not having better days. I really, truly believe that we would’ve contended for the win at Darlington but obviously we were not a contending car here [Gateway],” Hamlin said.
Although Hamlin did not feel like a contender at Gateway, he believes his lap times were solid. Yet, it was again execution that hindered his performance. Along with restarts, Hamlin knows where he needs to improve if he wants to win his first career Cup championship.
“If you look at the lap times, we were OK. It’s not like we were horrible. It was execution [and] it was restarts. Those two things. If we fix those two things, we’ll be OK,” Hamlin said.
Denny Hamlin Gets Candid About His Championship Hopes