Denny Hamlin is one of the best-performing drivers in NASCAR. He has acquired six stage wins, the third highest, throughout the 2024 Cup Series season. He was on the third rank in the regular season. He has also obtained the second-most race wins this year. However, his championship bid is now at stake owing to Toyota’s engine seal compliance blunder. The #11 driver’s chances of winning the championship have turned bleak. There is absolutely no margin of error in the remaining two races of the regular season or the initial post-season races.

The drift from third to sixth rank and a fallout of over 100 points from the championship leader have magnanimous implications for Denny Hamlin. While Kyle Larson also suffered a setback after his involvement in the multi-car crash at Michigan, he is now in the position where Hamlin was prior to the NASCAR penalty.

Diving deep into Hamlin’s plight

The JGR driver has made it to the playoffs well within margins despite the harsh penalty. He still has a fighting chance to emerge victorious from the eliminations based on the current NASCAR Cup Series standings. However, the catch with reduced playoff points is that Hamlin will have to work tremendously hard to make it through each of the rounds, with a total of nine races before the winner-take-all finale.

Moreover, the diminished ranking also means that Denny Hamlin will not receive the desired rank-based additional playoff points. But he will still get the points for his stage and race wins, which might impart him some relief and an edge over a 16-driver field devoid of these points.

The NASCAR Point System for Playoffs format works differently from the regular season in broadly two ways. Firstly, the points after each of the first three rounds, consisting of three races each, are reset to a predefined number, and the playoff points are added to it to derive the final tally. These points are crucial in deciding which drivers get eliminated after the said rounds.

The second peculiarity of NASCAR playoffs is the elimination aspect itself. There is no scope for return after a driver falls behind in playoff points, which they strive to earn throughout the regular season. The higher the playoff points, the greater the cushion from elimination. The same is not the case for Hamlin, and he needs to tread very carefully through every nook and turn to stay in the game.

How is JGR preparing to catch up with the field?

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The doom faced by JGR was due to TRD’s inability to get Hamlin’s car engine inspected after the Bristol win. It is not mandatory for all engines to go through the inspection process immediately after a race win. NASCAR’s rulebook says the engines must get inspected after the team declares they have peaked their lifecycle. One NASCAR official clarifies, “Each race-winning engine must be inspected by NASCAR once the race team determines that its life cycle is complete.”

To overcome this contingency, Joe Gibbs Racing finds solace in the fact that Hamlin’s car has been the fastest. The 43-year-old driver has led 896 laps, the maximum, through the season. Sparing some crashes that he’s been a part of in 2024, Hamlin’s performance was spectacular. However, Hamlin’s motto while stepping into the season might need reconsideration.

He cannot abide by “it’s a crash or a win” logic anymore. He has survived 12 crashes in eight of the 24 races so far, but that needs to stop now. It is time to display the cleanest racecraft he has ever known, and it’s time to rise from the ashes.