Denny Hamlin still remembers the thrill of his first Daytona 500 win in 2016. The final lap, the roar of the crowd, and the euphoria of edging out Martin Truex Jr. by just 0.010 seconds—it was a moment of pure racing bliss at The Great American Race. Fast forward to 2025, and that magic seems to be fading away, at least for Hamlin. Now both a driver and a team co-owner, he isn’t just frustrated with his on-track performance; he’s questioning the direction of the sport itself.

On Sunday, William Byron was running ninth entering the backstretch. However, Hamlin, who was the race leader at that point, got involved in a crash with Austin Cindric, and Cole Custer, wiping out the entire front of the field, and allowing the No. 24 to sneak by to claim his second Daytona 500 win in a row. While Byron maintained that he used his instincts to move to the third lane and avoid the crash, many feel it was down to luck. This is something that Hamlin feels is taking away from the prestige of the Daytona 500.

This year’s Daytona 500 had 35 of the 41 cars in the race involved in an accident, including three major crashes in the final 15 laps as drivers jostled for NASCAR’s premier crown. That’s the most number of cars in a crash in the Daytona 500 since 37 were involved in incidents in the 2019 race. But believes that winning the race has now just been reduced to luck rather than skill. Let’s talk about stats for a second.

Since the introduction of NextGen in 2022, Hamlin has had an average finish of 15 at the Daytona 500 with one DNF, a stark contrast to his recording an average finish of 2.5 in the four years prior to Next Gen, including back-to-back wins in 2019 and 2020. Well, numbers speak for themselves and Denny has every reason to be upset about it. Talking on his Actions Detrimental podcast on Tuesday, Hamlin said,

“I hate that what is supposed to be our most prestigious race, a showcase of heroes, is luck. It is luck, and I don’t care how else you want to say it. Daytona 500 was a battle of the best driver and the best team… some of the greats of our sport could navigate the traffic and use it to their advantage… that art is gone now.”

The introduction of the NASCAR Next Gen Car has turned superspeedway racing into two—and sometimes three-wide racing with the cars perfectly lined up in a row. A major issue is that in this car, some drivers feel they can no longer make the winning moves they used to. Moreover, the teams are also focused on fuel-saving surrounding stage breaks, and cautions. This emphasis on fuel saving has led to cars almost cruising around the track with little to no racing. But in order to take advantage late in the race, drivers may try something that often leads to car crashes in packs.

While Hamlin has so many issues with superspeedway racing as a driver, his pain is tenfold as an owner.

“But that’s what upsets me as well. I spend so much money at 23XI to ensure my team and my drivers have the best cars available to go out there and compete for a win. But it’s just such a f—— c—shoot now. I hate that what is supposed to be our most prestigious race… is luck! It is luck and I don’t care how else you wanna say it… You just have to avoid the wreck. 

Entering the last lap, Denny Hamlin was jostling for the lead with Austin Cindric. Meanwhile, William Byron started the final lap in ninth and worked his way up to 6th by Turn 3. This is where Hamlin has an issue. He said, “Every car is planted to the ground, which is why we are going down the straightaway just ram-rodding each other.” And this is exactly how the events unfolded. Hamlin and Cindric were trailed by Cole Custer and Chase Briscoe. Custer tried to force the leaders into the inside lane and caused all of them to spin, allowing a lucky William Byron to avoid the crash and take home his second consecutive Daytona 500 victory.

Top Comment by Kramelop

Denny is right, but it goes much deeper than just the Next Gen car. As a younger man I can...more

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At the Daytona 500 or any Superspeedway, it has become a principle to opt for fuel-saving tactics because of the Next-Gen cars. It could leave drivers out of fuel even before the completion of the race, making every superspeedway race a wait till the end to see who wrecks out first, trying to use all of their remaining fuel. According to Hamlin, this is deteriorating the prestige of a race like the Daytona 500 and NASCAR as a whole.

“I feel like the Daytona 500 is a microcosm of the sport in general as to how we crown our champion now as well. It started with the competition group a decade ago when we took away horsepower because we wanted to look good on TV, we wanted you to think they can pass, but not that they can actually pass. For me, it’s gotten to the place where the entertainment of it has far taken over the sport of it. And I don’t know how to reverse things,” he added.

There is a growing perception that winning a race in NASCAR is now based on missing one or two major accidents rather than on skill.

Hamlin had previously also opened up about how the Next Gen cars were not his cup of tea. He said, “It’s that in the next-gen era, it’s been horrendous. The finishes have been bad, and I think it’s because of… next gen with fuel saving and all that stuff like that’s not my forte and I’ve got to learn to be better at it.”

Meanwhile, Hamlin’s discontent with NASCAR as an owner is also not anything new.

Hamlin and co-owner Michael Jordan have invested a lot of their time, money, and effort into 23XI Racing. However, he feels his contributions to the sport are not valued by NASCAR. Hamlin and 23XI joined Front Row Motorsports to file an anti-trust lawsuit against NASCAR in October. At a press conference later, he was asked whether his financial contributions and reinvestment in the sport were appreciated by NASCAR.

He replied, “Probably not,” after a lengthy pause. Both 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports will compete in the 2025 Cup Series season despite not signing the new charter after being granted an injunction, but for now, Hamlin’s gripe lies with the Next Gen superspeedway, which he feels is taking the attention and credit away from the driver and his team.

Hamlin feels for William Byron

Despite winning back-to-back Daytona 500s, William Byron’s win in 2025 was less than spectacular. It involved a whole lot of luck, which Hamlin feels takes away from other driver’s performances and especially Byron’s victory, as it would just go down as another superspeedway win for Hendrick Motorsports.

Hamlin spoke about how Byron would respond to someone asking him how he won the race and said, “[Byron would say] ‘I didn’t get wrecked’. That’s not what you want to hear. You want to hear, ‘My team brought an amazing car, we had great strategy, and at the end I made the move to win the race’… It’s just not fair to William, it’s not fair to the 24 team.” He further added, “It’s all going to count the same to them in the record books, record books gonna show you he went back to back, won the race, and in years past, five-ten years from now, nobody will remember.”

As great a driver as William Byron is, every NASCAR fan knows that he was nowhere near winning that race if the leaders didn’t spin out. Just look at the third-place finisher, Jimmie Johnson. At the time of the crash, Johnson was in 10th place, probably celebrating his first top-10 finish since the Next-Gen car was introduced. Yet, in the blink of an eye, he got a free run to the checkered flag and ended up with a podium finish!

Do you think Denny Hamlin has a point when it comes to superspeedway racing being totally luck-based? Does 23XI Racing have to change its strategy to taste success at superspeedways? Let us know in the comments below!