Denny Hamlin has spent 21 full-time Cup seasons chasing the one prize that has never made it to his trophy case. In 2026, it finally looked within reach, with four wins, the regular-season title, and the top seed in the Chase. Instead, it ended the way so many of his seasons have, with Hamlin watching Kyle Larson celebrate and trying to make sense of how it slipped away.

“I think what this year taught me the most is that maybe I don’t have to grind so hard as the regular season. Like, I really did. I worked so hard for thirty-six straight weeks, and it was like, did the first twenty-six really matter that much, you know?” Hamlin told Bob Pockrass via X.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was reflecting on a familiar disappointment.

“And so I don’t know if that’s what it was designed to do, but I grinded it out and put a lot of effort in, and it certainly tuckered me out towards the end of the year. I had some burnout,” he continued. “But, you know, maybe I can take the last few weeks easier, and we finish fifth in points. What’s the big deal?”

Larson, who went winless in the regular season, won two of the first four Chase races and flipped the championship script.

At Homestead-Miami Speedway, Larson clinched his third title in Stage 1, while Hamlin entered the finale 70 points back and needing a win.

He pushed for it. Hamlin brushed the wall late and slipped to sixth, finishing third in the standings, 56 points behind Larson and seven behind teammate Christopher Bell.

That context matters for the “fifth in points” line. Denny Hamlin was speaking hypothetically about easing off late, not describing his actual finish. He said he had made peace with the result well before the weekend, calling it easier to take than the shock of Phoenix a year earlier.

The regular season had given him every reason to push. Hamlin won three straight races in June at Nashville, Michigan and Pocono, the Michigan win coming after he started from the rear. He closed the 26-race stretch with four wins and was the only Cup driver without a DNF heading into the Chase.

The 2026 season brought back a 10-race Chase in place of the elimination format. The top 16 in points after 26 races qualified, the field was reset, and the regular-season leader started 25 points clear.

Hamlin’s question lands on that format’s central trade-off: building an early advantage versus delivering when the final 10 races arrive.

Hamlin was careful not to frame his frustration as a call for a different system. His argument was more personal: whether maintaining that intensity for all 26 races was the right approach.

His bigger concern was how hard it is to stay at the top for an entire season.

“It’s really hard in this sport to be on top for 36 weeks. It’s just, I mean, that’s not really something that happens, and that’s why you see the ebbs and flows,” he explained.

A team can dominate for months and still lose its rhythm when the stakes are highest. In this format, Hamlin argued, peaking late matters more than leading early.

“If you can, it appears in this format, just get hot at the end again. That’s really the thing you need to do to win a championship,” he said.

The wear Hamlin described is not unique to the No. 11 team.

Denny Hamlin isn’t the only driver feeling the grind

Former Cup driver Quin Houff told Frontstretch in 2023 that the 38 to 40 weeks a year at the track were only part of the load, with offseason preparation and sponsor commitments adding more.

Kyle Larson has admitted that piling on races has a cost. Speaking on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour ahead of the 2026 season, he said he starts each year with a list of well over 100 possible dirt races, then trims it.

Even so, he conceded he had probably done too much over the previous couple of years and tended to feel burned out by summer. His children’s schedules were part of the equation as he scaled back.

For Hamlin, the physical side was a factor all year. He re-injured his shoulder over the winter and chose to race all 36 races rather than miss three or four months for surgery, pushing the repair to the offseason. 

After his June Michigan win, he said age costs a driver eyesight, reaction time and a body that hurts more, admitting the last part was already showing because he was not recovering as quickly during the week.

He tried to protect himself, too. Midway through the Chase, Hamlin said his team had front-loaded appearances so he could have more time off down the stretch. It was not enough to keep fatigue from creeping in.

Hamlin has said he expects 2027 to be his final Cup season, which sharpens the question. His regular-season speed proved he can still contend. Now he is weighing whether spending everything before the Chase leaves too little for the part of the season that decides the title.

I counted by hand, so please run it through your editor’s word counter. It may differ by a few words depending on how it handles hyphenated terms and “No. 11.”