Denny Hamlin’s trip to Chicagoland seemed to tick every checkbox on paper. The veteran Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished third. He helped JGR pull off a dominant 1-2-3 sweep. He also grew his NASCAR Cup Series points lead to 44 points over Tyler Reddick. However, Hamlin wasn’t thinking about points or podiums after the race. Instead, he kept thinking about a single late-race decision. He believes that one move cost him a real chance to win the eero 400.

Denny Hamlin blames himself for letting a win slip away

“I’m looking at the points, but like so the moment these types of weeks where it’s like all I care about is, can I win this week, and I thought I didn’t do a great job for the team.”

Denny Hamlin left Chicagoland Speedway, acknowledging that he pushed too hard. He was looking for that final bit of speed to catch his teammate, Chase Briscoe, for the win. That choice ultimately cost him the race.

“It would have been close. I just thought I needed to get a little more speed out of the car, and I didn’t know that there was nobody running the very, very top, and so when I went up there, it was just marbles, and so yeah, it cost us a chance there.”

During the last green-flag run, the No. 11 Toyota had gradually reduced the gap. Hamlin thought he still had a genuine chance to make one last push and win after erasing Briscoe’s advantage by almost six seconds. On Lap 260 of 267, he drove into Turn 2 using the extreme outside lane to build momentum.

Rather than gaining traction, Denny Hamlin found himself on a rubber-accumulated track. He hit the outside wall and had to lift off the throttle. His comeback ended right there. The mistake gave Briscoe enough breathing room to win, while Hamlin had to settle for third.

Even then, Hamlin wasn’t convinced the outcome was guaranteed.

“I don’t know if we would have got there. The math says it would have been right there, so it would have been really, really close. But still, passing these guys are two different things.”

In addition to the late error, Hamlin believed that as daylight waned, the No. 11 squad progressively lost its advantage. However, he admitted that for a large portion of the afternoon, the vehicle was among the strongest in the field. The veteran wasn’t going to overreact, though.

“When it was light outside, I thought we were in control even when we weren’t leading the race. I could just tell we were kind of in control of our destiny and the other guys just got better, or the track came to them and we lost it a little bit,” he said.

Even championship-caliber teams won’t win every weekend, Hamlin said, particularly when the balance is off on the last stretch. Still, it was a massive day for Joe Gibbs Racing. Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell, and Hamlin took all three podium spots to celebrate a 1-2-3 finish.

However, Denny Hamlin felt conflicted about the outcome. As the advantage in points increased, all he could think about was the chance lost due to one expensive error.