Denny Hamlin would be the first to admit that his team hasn’t fired on all cylinders during the playoffs. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran has somehow clawed his way into the Round of Eight, but his No. 11 crew has left much to be desired regarding his car’s speed and dealing with pit stops. With just two races remaining before the championship race at Phoenix, the margin for error is nonexistent going into Homestead-Miami and Martinsville. Will he rise to the pressure in the coming weeks or wilt under the expectation of making it to Championship 4?

Reflecting on his result at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin counted his lucky stars that the circumstances played in his favor at the 1.5-mile track. Despite a disappointing South Point 400, the Florida native secured a top-ten result to keep his title hopes alive.

Denny Hamlin acknowledges good fortune in Las Vegas

Denny Hamlin hasn’t won a race since April. Yes, you read that right. Even though he is one of three drivers, which includes Christopher Bell and William Byron to have secured three victories all season, his last triumph came at Dover Motor Speedway over 20 races ago. The 43-year-old is in the hunt for his first Cup Series championship of his career but a topsy-turvy playoff campaign hasn’t instilled a lot of belief in his fanbase, As things stand, he is fifth in the elimination cutline, 27 points behind William Byron in the driver standings going into the penultimate Round of Eight race of the season.

Despite his title hopes looking increasingly precarious, Denny Hamlin’s eighth-place finish in Las Vegas is a flattering outcome after his struggles on the racetrack. Reflecting on how lady luck was on his side at the 2024 South Point 400, the racing veteran said on Actions Detrimental by Denny Hamlin podcast, “Yeah, so we had pretty old left side tires and it just, you know, tires actually mean more probably at Vegas is what they do at other racetracks. So I just, yeah, couldn’t hang on. I was dropping like a rock, I was getting run into from every angle possible. It was not going well and yeah, we were lucky to stay on the lead lap there.”

Even though Hamlin secured his best finish since Bristol, he faced three major setbacks at Las Vegas Motor Speedway largely because of his No. 11 crew. The first one was a lengthy 13.4-second pit-stop on Lap 33, which relegated him from fifth on the grid to 14th. The Virginia native went on to experience a loose left-rear wheel issue after Stage 2, which forced him to get back into the pit road. Just when things couldn’t get any worse, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver had to deal with a vibration issue, which compounded his struggles in the high-stakes race.

However, what proved to be a turning point in Denny Hamlin’s respectable outcome in Vegas was that he remained in contention despite experiencing tire troubles. Reflecting on his good fortune, the veteran driver said, “Luckily, we were able to fight and stay on the lead lap there when we had those old tires… that was a crucial moment for us to just keep fighting and stay on the lead lap, and that allowed us to grind away this type of finish.” Helping him salvage his race was crew chief Chris Gabehart, who devised a fuel-saving strategy to assist Hamlin in making the most out of a bad situation to finish eighth.

Hamlin hopes the strategy will be on point at Homestead-Miami

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It’s now or never for Denny Hamlin. With two races remaining before the championship race at Phoenix, the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran needs to get a result at Homestead-Miami to remain in contention for the title. The 43-year-old has won on the 1.5-mile track thrice before, but not since the Next-Gen car was introduced in 2022. With the pressure piling up and the stakes higher than ever, will the Florida native pull off a clutch performance?

A lot will depend on the strategy. Explaining how he will prepare ahead of the 2024 Straight Talk Wireless 400, Denny Hamlin said, “You just really rely on notes from last time you were there, and then you kind of create offsets from, you know, what has progressed in your cars and your setups from a year ago. Then you put it all on a sheet of paper, and you try to put this Lego piece together in the correct way. You do sim work, things like that. You just trust the process. And when you go there, you hope that you’ve hit it.”

If recent results are anything to go by, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has had mixed results on the intermediate speedway. He finished 30th in 2023 but secured a top-five result the year prior. In both instances, he narrowly missed out on Championship 4 with a single-digit margin. However, if there is one driver who has the experience and talent to turn his fortunes around, it’s Denny Hamlin. The Cup Series championship has eluded the veteran for nearly two decades, and with the ongoing NASCAR lawsuit, he will be hungrier than ever to finally lift the title in front of the sanctioning body’s hierarchy.