With how consistent Denny Hamlin has been in 2026, it’d be a real shame to lose his mojo right when the Chase begins. It’s his 20th postseason appearance, and seldom has he entered one as a bigger favorite than he has this year. Four wins, 14 top-fives and 17 top-tens. Add zero DNFs on top of that. But Hamlin knows that fatigue has set in around his No. 11 camp now, and ahead of the Darlington Chase opener, he has issued them a warning.
Hamlin revealed on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that he’s having his team check everything thrice now, just like a pilot does before pressing a switch on an airplane. The stakes are just that high. Being near perfect for 26 races won’t mean anything if they drop the ball now, he suggested.
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“This is the dog days of our season. I’m tired right now. This is — I mean, we’re 27 races into this thing. I’m tired, but we’re gonna have to find that extra gear, and we’re gonna have to find that little bit of extra motivation to even challenge yourself,” Hamlin said.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who enters the Chase as the No. 1 seed, feels that attention to detail is what will matter the most when all is said and done. Considering the hiccups he has faced in New Hampshire and Daytona in recent weeks, it makes sense why Hamlin has decided to put his whole team on alert.
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In New Hampshire, Hamlin’s crew chief, Chris Gayle, said “enchilada” on the team radio, which was a code word for all four of his tires to be changed. His pit crew, however, forgot what that meant and looked confused when Hamlin pitted. Veteran crew chief Steve Letarte called the whole thing infuriating, and in the Chase, if this leads to Hamlin losing valuable time and track position, it’d be disastrous.
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Then, at the regular-season finale in Daytona, Hamlin dealt with a rear-facing bumper camera failure. Losing the feed left Hamlin out on the superspeedway, ‘half-blind’ and driving at 200 mph, also leaving him unaware of the heavy traffic behind him. After that outing, he decided he had to address his team.
“I gathered my team after Daytona. I came on the radio, and I said, “I want everyone to meet me at the car at the end of that race.” I got the pit crew, I got the road crew, I got the guys who put the cars together, and I said, “It’s all the details that you take for granted. It’s just another race. It’s fine, you know,” Hamlin stated.
Hamlin was classified 11th at Daytona, which was also the result of a scoring-error controversy following a multi-car wreck on the final lap of overtime that brought out the caution. Thankfully, the weekend didn’t undo any of his hard work that season. He had the No. 1 spot locked in before getting into the No. 11 car that day.
After the Chase points reset, he sits at 2100 points, 25 ahead of Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney in 2nd. And he hopes to build on that without letting lapses derail the hard work he and his crew put in. That begins with making a statement in Darlington on Sunday, a track where he feels he’s not been at his absolute best over the last couple of races.
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Denny Hamlin’s biggest focus as the 2026 Chase begins
Hamlin’s self-assessment ahead of the Cook Out Southern 500 proves the standards he is holding himself to this season. He’s a master at Darlington, with five victories on the track in his Cup Series career. But his last two races — which would be considered great for almost any other driver — had him wanting to work harder.
The JGR veteran finished 7th in the same race last year and 11th in the Spring race — the Goodyear 400 — in 2026. These aren’t the typical top-five results he expects of himself. So, in a press conference in Daytona last weekend, Hamlin said:
“I mean, I think it starts with Darlington. That’s a track where I’ve not been my best over the last couple of races there, so I’m trying to get the performance back where we expect to be at that racetrack. So that’s the number one focus for me at the moment.”
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Hamlin has also stated that he is confident he can win at all 10 of the tracks that are in the Chase this season. In a previous interview this year, he said that the schedule is the best he could have hoped for.
Hamlin will start Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 from fourth on the grid, putting him in a solid position to get off to a good start and grab some valuable stage points before building on that and going for a win. He’ll be hoping for an incident-free race on top of that, which has been the case for him almost every single weekend in 2026.
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