Denny Hamlin enters Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway 70 points behind Kyle Larson and sees no realistic way to erase the gap. In fact, speaking at a press availability on Friday, Hamlin compared his chances to catch Larson and bring home the Cup to winning the lottery.
“I mean, I don’t have any optimism. There’s obviously a chance you can win the lottery as well, but do you really count on that?” he said, sending a blunt message on where he believes he stands, as quoted by reporter Jeff Gluck.
Hamlin has won 64 Cup races, more than all but eight drivers in NASCAR history. Yet somehow, he has never won a championship.
His ‘don’t have any optimism’ remark followed Hamlin’s sixth-place finish at Martinsville Speedway on Nov. 1, where he called the title “unrealistic for sure,” as quoted by NASCAR.com after the race. He said the deficit to Larson needed to sit in the 40s to leave the No. 11 team with any degree of viable hope.
Hamlin Faces Long Odds at Homestead-Miami Speedway
Larson leads the standings, with Christopher Bell 67 points back and Hamlin third, 70 behind. Larson needs only nine points at Homestead to clinch the title no matter what his rivals do, and a 28th-place finish would be enough to get it done, even if he scores no stage points.
Hamlin’s route is far narrower. He must both win the race and collect 17 of the 20 available stage points, or 16 if he also takes the fastest-lap point, according to calculations by Fox Sports insider Bob Pockrass. Larson would also need to finish 29th or worse without a stage point. The most any driver can collect is 76 points in a perfect race.
Hamlin won the regular-season title and started Martinsville from the pole, but he trimmed the gap by only three points. A decision not to pit during Stage 1 left Hamlin 17th at the end of the segment, while Larson ran 23rd, one lap down, and neither driver scored a stage point all day.
“We just didn’t gain enough to make it realistic,” Hamlin said, according to Pockrass.
Denny Hamlin’s Powerball Win and Career Résumé
Hamlin has cashed a lottery ticket before. During a 2022 race weekend in Phoenix, he says that he bought $300 worth of Powerball tickets at a Scottsdale gas station and matched five of six numbers, including the Powerball, for a $50,000 prize. The odds of winning that prize stand at 1 in 913,130.
Hamlin collected again in Las Vegas in March 2025, where a $300 bet on a Buffalo slot machine paid $126,150 on a single spin and two nights of play totaled more than $200,000.
His lottery comparison therefore comes from experience. Hamlin has cashed a Powerball ticket and a Las Vegas jackpot, but not a Powerball grand prize or a Cup championship.
Hamlin was born Nov. 18, 1980, in Tampa, Florida, and raised in Chesterfield, Virginia. He signed with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2004 and won at Pocono on June 11, 2006, the first of his 64 Cup victories. Eight of those wins have come at Pocono, where he swept both races that first season.
He owns three Daytona 500 victories, in 2016, 2019 and 2020, and co-owns 23XI Racing with NBA legend Michael Jordan. He finished second in the standings in 2010, when he led Jimmie Johnson by 15 points entering the finale, and again in 2025, when he led 208 laps at Phoenix Raceway but finished sixth after a late caution forced overtime.
Hamlin has said 2027 will be his final season in the Cup Series. He turns 46 on Nov. 18 and is the oldest full-time driver in the series, according to The Associated Press. His father, who was terminally ill, died in a house fire during the offseason, according to Fox Sports.
Larson, the 2025 champion, would claim his third Cup title by clinching Sunday.
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