Denny Hamlin entered the 2026 Chase as the No. 1 seed, but his championship campaign got off to a shaky start at Darlington. A difficult Cook Out Southern 500 left the Joe Gibbs Racing driver 18th at the finish, hardly the statement he would have wanted from the opening race. Yet Hamlin is not letting one disappointing result shake his confidence. With nine races remaining and a familiar collection of tracks ahead, he believes recent success has given his No. 11 team a valuable advantage.
“All these Chase tracks we’ve been good at within the last year. It’s not like we were really good there three years ago or five years ago. All these tracks we’ve been really good at very recently. So our notebook should be pretty solid when we go to these tracks,” Denny Hamlin told PRN as NASCAR rolls into Gateway this weekend for the second race of the Chase.
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Hamlin’s confidence is not based on a vague feeling. His recent record at the tracks still to come in the Chase gives the No. 11 team plenty of evidence to believe its preparation can pay off. The JGR driver has managed to stitch consistent runs and even wins at the upcoming tracks.
Gateway has been a good track for DH ever since Cup Series started visiting the track from 2022. Two runner ups and a win in last three of the four starts at the 1.25-mile track shows how dominant he’s been here. And this streak of good runs continues as Chase moves from short tracks to intermediates.
Denny Hamlin’s track record at these Chase venues speaks for itself. Subscribe for more interesting stories.
The same pattern continues at Bristol Motor Speedway. Hamlin finished second in the April race last year, showing that the short track has also suited his recent form. Kansas Speedway has produced similar results. He finished second at this track last September before following it up with a fourth-place finish in this year’s April race.
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Las Vegas Motor Speedway in particular is his strong suit. He won last year’s race to seal his spot in the championship race, and he was victorious once again this year, to kickstart another title run. And this consistency is spread across different style of racetracks.
Charlotte Motor Speedway is another track where he has remained competitive, finishing third earlier this year. Phoenix Raceway also stands out. Hamlin finished second in March 2025 and was poised to win the championship race in November, until an unexpected caution and pit cycle shift altered the final moments.
Martinsville Speedway has been another stronghold, he won at the spring race in 2025 and backed it up with a runner-up finish this season. Even Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the results are slightly older, offers encouraging evidence. He finished third in October 2024 and fifth in March 2025.
Talladega is the only exception here, as the best result for Hamlin at this Superspeedway in the past couple of years is a tenth-place finish in the October 2024 race.
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Overall, taken together, those results paint a much clearer picture of why Hamlin believes his team can remain a factor throughout the Chase. Every race matters in the current format, and every point can become critical when the championship battle tightens.
Hamlin does not necessarily need to win every remaining race to keep himself in position. Consistently finishing near the front could be enough to protect his championship standing while creating opportunities to capitalize when victory is within reach.
Even Darlington deserves some context before his 18th-place finish is viewed as a warning sign. Hamlin led nearly 20% of the race’s laps and posted an average running position of 9.01, suggesting the No. 11 car had genuine speed.
His result was heavily influenced by contact with Michael McDowell, who bumped Hamlin into the wall while he was running around the edge of the top 15. The incident damaged the toe links on Hamlin’s car and noticeably affected its performance for the remainder of the night.
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That makes Gateway an important opportunity. Hamlin already knows what it takes to win there, and his recent record suggests the same preparation can translate across much of the Chase schedule.
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