“Going to have to put a thumb in the air and make a few guesses” is what Denny Hamlin said on Saturday when asked about the Iowa Corn 350. Understandable, considering his weekend had started horribly, owing to issues with his car. He simply didn’t have enough data to foresee a positive outcome.

Hamlin finished fifth at the end of a long 350-lap battle, despite having little reason to believe he could pull it off.

“This is the worst mindset I’ve had going into a race, and I can remember, I never felt beat before I started [a race],” Hamlin said after the race, per a video shared on X by journalist Dustin Long.

Hamlin, who has raced 743 times in the Cup Series and endured championship heartbreak before, had never felt the kind of dread he experienced at Iowa Speedway.

From the get-go, he struggled with brake issues on his No. 11 Toyota. During practice, his pedal sank completely to the floorboard, and even though his crew attempted multiple fixes, they couldn’t help him get out on the track in time to get meaningful laps on the board.

Qualifying, too, was painful for Hamlin. He went into the session knowing that he would not have enough braking power to put together a strong lap and secure a good starting position for Sunday’s race. Predictably enough, he finished 29th.

A late change to his car’s cooling unit, made as the team tried to deal with the extreme heat, was deemed an unapproved adjustment by NASCAR, forcing him to start at the back of the grid.

Hamlin was not hoping for miracles ahead of the 350. He spoke before the race about just hanging back there, trying something different, and hopefully, getting a meaningful result in his quest to hold on to the #1 spot in the Championship standings.

“I felt really down about the day, and obviously I switched my goals to okay if I don’t have any brakes, I think that if I can get some cars to wreck, somehow I can finish in the top 25 and that honestly was the goal and that just was,” Hamlin continued in the same interview with Long.

Hamlin drove a clean race, stayed out of trouble, and, thanks to the work of his crew led by chief Chris Gayle, managed the unapproved brake-duct adjustments perfectly. He crossed the finish line in fifth, which took his total points at the top to 923.

Owner Joe Gibbs, after the race, admitted that he had never seen Hamlin so exhausted. He gave it his all to leave Iowa Speedway with his head held high. He praised his crew and, despite the difficulties on the day, insisted that when they all work together like this, he’d take a day like this “a hundred out of a hundred times.”

Hamlin’s teammate Ty Gibbs, meanwhile, won the Iowa Corn 350, which took him to No. 2 in the standings, 103 points behind him.

Still, what looked like a lost cause for Hamlin turned into a fifth-place finish. He may have had zero hope, but he and his team delivered when it mattered.