Turning Point: Denny Hamlin pouring on the wins again is this time any different?

Here’s what’s happening in NASCAR with the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway in the rearview and the Viva Mexico 250 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez (Sun., 3 p.m. ET, Prime Video) up next.

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1. Denny Hamlin is winning. Again. But is it finally different this time?

No. 11‘s Michigan victory wasn‘t flashy (until his Victory Lane interview, at least) — but something about this year feels distinct. With his third win of the season, the 57th of his Cup career in hand and all the momentum in the world, cement title-contender status would be cemented for most. For Hamlin? It sparks the same question we ask every summer: Will it finally matter in the fall?

On the race track, Denny Hamlin is no stranger to wins, winning, being victorious, successfully conquering, climbing proverbial mountains, etc.

Except for that one thing.

Sunday’s Michigan prevailer continues to close in on the top 10 in all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins, a milestone he very well may hit this season (and, perhaps, nobody ever will again). He once again appears destined for a date with the Championship 4, stacking victories seemingly at will, at times looking like a man among boys and only getting hotter as we approach the summer solstice. All that said, the narrative hasn‘t shifted: Hamlin is a big-stage winner; the active leader with three Daytona 500 crowns and as obvious a first-ballot Hall of Famer as they come — but still has zero Cup Series championships to his credit. Not yet, at least.

What made Sunday‘s win feel different isn‘t the number —  57 among the 700-plus starts on his resume — it‘s the nuance. The longtime Joe Gibbs Racing mainstay and all-time wins leader for the historic team is building not just results, but rhythm.

He‘s scored points in nine straight stages. He‘s among the series leaders in laps led and speed. He‘s made fewer unforced errors than we’re used to seeing, his pit crew included. And Michigan, long a domain of Ford‘s might, saw Toyota claim the race through Hamlin‘s poise, not power. He didn‘t steal one. He took it.

It’s well overused at this point, but Hamlin? He’s him.

What’s most interesting, perhaps, is that this is coming at a time when the rest of the field is becoming increasingly erratic. Kyle Larson … elite, but volatile and perhaps running on fumes. William Byron … fast, but burning through opportunities and hasn’t won since February. Christopher Bell … hot streak was outrageous, but has cooled some. Even Chase Elliott, the poster child for consistency, hasn‘t reached Victory Lane in what feels like forever. In a season all of a sudden filled with parity, Hamlin is starting to resemble something different: untouchability.

Yes, road courses — his one weakness, if you had to pick one — are coming. And no, despite a past Xfinity Series triumph there, Hamlin isn‘t likely to win in Mexico City; he hasn‘t scored a top 10 on a road course since 2023 and owns just one total in the Next Gen era. But that doesn‘t matter right now. What matters is identity, and after years of fine-tuning his role as the villain, the heel, the dominant-but-doomed disruptor, something about Hamlin‘s 2025 feels … different.

MORE: Hamlin on playing the villain: ‘I love that feeling‘

With each coming week its own whirlwind and a fresh baby boy on the way (or having just been delivered, depending on when you read this), Hamlin has needed to be as dialed in as ever across every aspect of his life. Everything comes down to detail, process and execution; an approach that clearly extends to the race track. And absolutely owning the execution piece that so often unraveled him in past playoff pushes might just be the boost he needs to push him to title No. 1.

Hamlin knows his time is finite. But all the pieces are there in 2025, and he knows he needs to make this one count.

“You have another birthday. You keep wondering, like, how long are you going to be able to keep doing this at this level? Listen, 57 might be it. None of us in this room know,” Hamlin said in his winner’s press conference on Sunday. “I’m at least going to enjoy it as if it’s my last, then I’ll go to work on Monday, just like I always have.”

And it’s starting to look like he’ll roll into work on a Monday in early November, finally wielding the Bill France Cup.

The 2025 season hasn‘t been a banner one for Trackhouse Racing.

Ross Chastain spent the early months fighting through mediocre qualifying efforts, lacking speed and fighting for back-half results. Daniel Suárez has been nearly invisible since his incredible EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) win in 2024, weighed down by lingering contract negotiations. Shane van Gisbergen — the transcendent talent from Down Under — has shown flashes but has lacked a breakout moment since shocking the world at Chicago in 2023.

But all of that is about to be washed away, because the tide is turning.

Chastain‘s Coca-Cola 600 win had been building for weeks after grinding everything out of his car he possibly could, and it came packed with a reminder that this team just knows how to win under pressure. That race wasn‘t handed to him; the Florida native earned it after starting in a backup car from the rear of the field for NASCAR’s longest race; a whole team — and then some — effort. After turning in nothing but head-scratchers for the first quarter of the year, Chastain has emerged as one of the few consistent closers in a season where chaos seems to set a higher bar weekly.

The Cup rookie SVG is on the other end of the learning curve, but he’s climbing fast. Three consecutive top 10s on road courses. A win in his debut. He may not be a title threat this year, but Mexico is such an unknown to most of the field that he legitimately could be a playoff driver by Monday morning, despite sitting 33rd in points right now. If there‘s a place for his next “how did he do that?” moment, it‘s this one.

But no story looms larger this weekend than Daniel Suárez.

This is not just a home race — it‘s a homecoming. Hailing from Monterrey, Suárez is the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series event. He‘s won at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez three times in the NASCAR Mexico Series.

This is his place. His people. His weekend. And perhaps his last best shot to will his way back into the playoff conversation.

MORE: Full Mexico City weekend schedule | Cup entry list

Suárez sits 28th in the standings — 68 points below the elimination line — with just 11 regular-season races remaining. Trackhouse, however, knows how to win at road courses, and it’s Suárez’s specialty. The team has three road course victories in the Next Gen era, tied for the second-most among all teams.

And if either he or SVG wins? The entire playoff picture explodes.

Mexico City is more than just a debut event with pomp and circumstance. It‘s a convergence point; a wildcard race with high-stakes implications to showcase American motorsport on an international scale. It‘s a shot for NASCAR’s most eclectic team to, once again, to punch above its weight in what was looking like a lost season, rewrite the narrative and launch a back half of 2025 that resets everything.

Because Trackhouse doesn‘t want to sneak into the postseason. It wants to arrive loudly.

Three cars deep, three different styles, one mission.

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