“Those guys were far more talented than I have ever thought about being. I just work really hard. I still to this day work really hard at my craft to try to continue to get better,” Hamlin said after winning his 61st NASCAR Cup Series race. He became just the fifth driver to win a Cup race in 20 different seasons, joining Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon. Now those four legends right there are seen as part of NASCAR’s Mount Rushmore.

But despite joining this elite list, Hamlin takes a humbling approach, always somehow thinking he’s underachieved when compared to those icons. Even when this stat was brought up in the post-race presser, the JGR driver added, “Awesome, my name is not the same.” He might dodge these comparisons all he wants, but Dale Jr isn’t sold on his bluff. In the process, Jr also made his case why he thinks Hamlin is his favorite to win the 2026 NASCAR Cup championship.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Hamlin is better than Yarborough

Speaking on the Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a bold championship prediction for the 2026 season. The NASCAR Hall of Famer also provided his explanation on what he thinks of Hamlin’s legacy in the context of all-time greats.

“Denny Hamlin is my pick for the championship this year,” Junior said.

So far this season, Hamlin has progressively improved his results. He started the season with a 31st-place finish, followed by a 13th, then a 10th, then a 5th, and most recently a 1st-place finish. But while there’s still a lot of races left this year, Dale Jr. claims he has ‘seen enough.’

“I think he’s better than quite possibly a Cale Yarborough or some of these big names that he looked up to. Couple more years, you might put him on the Mt. Rushmore. You might. I do believe talent-wise he ranks way higher than he wants to admit. He probably deep down inside believes that he ranks higher, but he’s just not going to say it. And so he says, ‘Well, you know, I’m not as good as some of them guys, but I work harder and that’s how I do this,'” Earnhardt Jr. elaborated.

As per Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin is one of those “unicorns,” a driver who still remains mentally sharp with passion and motivation to take risks. Very few drivers have been able to end their careers on a high note. Look at Jimmie Johnson, he couldn’t win a single race in his last three seasons (2018-2020) before he abruptly left NASCAR for IndyCar. Then there is Kyle Busch in the modern era, who, despite being 5 years younger than Hamlin, has already started to regress.

Since 2019, Denny Hamlin has won 26 Cup races, and he’s performed consistently in the Next-Gen car. It is rare to see a driver able to adapt to different technologies and changing dynamics of racing, but Hamlin is an anomaly. But there’s one more thing that works in favor of the JGR driver that just might allow him to recover from last year’s Phoenix heartbreak.

Hamlin finally has a system he can thrive in

While Denny Hamlin got quite close to winning the elusive Cup championship last season under the playoff system, this year he’d have a strong chance. This was the theory Dale Earnhardt Jr. proposed as NASCAR employed the Chase championship format for the 2026 season.

“Denny knows how to set himself up early in this system. Talking about the point system that we have this year, Denny knows he’s had to kind of climb out of a hole that he started put himself in early. I think this system will reward a driver like him that can be consistent and win periodically throughout the year,” he said about Hamlin.

Earnhardt Jr. mentioned that all Hamlin needs to do is find a way into the top 3 on the points table, about which he was optimistic. Currently, the #11 driver is 4th in points.

Having said that, the former Hendrick driver emphasized that this is Denny Hamlin’s year, considering the points system, his current momentum heading into one of his strongest tracks in Darlington, and his feeling that the JGR driver will put himself on top of the table at the end of the regular season.