In Denny Hamlin’s eyes, winning the championship is the most important milestone that he wants to achieve. With 61 wins, he’s just three short of surpassing Kyle Busch’s legacy of 63 wins. The latter feels Hamlin would definitely do so. In fact, not just Busch, many are comparing him with the next contender to beat: the late legend Dale Earnhardt, who ranks 8th with 76 wins. But what does Hamlin himself feel about this?
“I think it’s pie in the sky. Realistically, I think that given the runway Kyle’s career’s got, he’s still got more years to go than I will, a handful that he’s capable of running and winning long after I’m gone,” said Hamlin, after Busch’s comments on him yesterday.
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“So, I mean, I think I’m kind of where I’m at and where I think I will be, but you just never know. I mean, each win stacks, and you know, 50 was a goal at one point. So, you just keep moving.”
For Hamlin, the most important milestone was to reach 50 victories. Now that he is way past that, Hamlin is trying to focus more on ending his career as NASCAR Cup Series champion. That’s more important than winning. The close calls and near misses have been troubling him for quite some time.
While Hamlin might want to compete against the likes of Busch and Earnhardt, he does have his eyes set on one singular race. Like Dale Earnhardt wanted to win the elusive Daytona 500 race, Hamlin wants to win one of the other Crown Jewel races. The Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is Denny Hamlin’s dream victory.
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“Keep moving the bar as far as you can, but I think that I’ve certainly got more wins than what I would have imagined. It’s just, now can we get the big prize at the end of the year? That’s the only goal left to have other than Brickyard, certainly one that’s still mindful, of me personally, of where I’m at.”
The ‘big prize’ that he is talking about is the championship title. He was almost able to claim it last year. But unfortunately, the final overtime took it away from him. Hamlin has been trying his best and has had multiple Championship 4 appearances. None of them was successful enough.
But with the return of the championship format, maybe he can realize this dream too. This time, it won’t depend on the last race alone. Hamlin will have to power through the final 10 races of the Chase to establish himself as the undisputed winner.
On that note, let’s have a look at the 10 most victorious drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series and Denny Hamlin’s future competitors.
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Top 10 drivers in Cup with most wins
Here’s a list of the best drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series as of 2026, according to the races they have won:
Richard Petty, who leads the table one-sidedly, also has the record for the most poles ever won (123), most wins in a season (27), and most Daytona 500 wins (7), among other records.
While Petty took 1185 starts to achieve that number, the second-place David Pearson achieved his 105 wins in just 574 starts. In the modern era, Jeff Gordon has ruled the numbers with his 93 wins from 1993 to 2015.
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