A late restart cost Denny Hamlin the 2025 championship. It was not the first time the title slipped away. In 2010, an early spin and front-end damage left him 39 points behind Jimmie Johnson. In 2019, an oversized piece of grill tape overheated his engine during a pit stop. Hamlin has been close enough to feel it year after year, and the question now is whether he can finally close the deal.

Now that Kyle Larson is pulling ahead in the 2026 Chase format, he has another fight against time. His latest admission shows us that he knows exactly what another missed opportunity could mean.

“I think I have not hit the panic button at all, but I can see it. I’m just not quite there yet,” he shared with Kelly Crandall, who shared a clip on X.

This admission came when Hamlin was asked how he could push his team to improve without putting too much pressure on himself. That is a difficult question for a driver whose championship history has been as painful as his.

Going back to his 2025 loss, it was particularly painful because he entered the late stages looking like a champion after dominating a massive portion of the race. However, a late-race caution and an overtime restart allowed the championship to slip away at the very end. Instead, it was Larson who took the Championship away from him, under his nose.

However, that’s not the end of it. Denny Hamlin’s had other painful endings too. He finished third in the 2021 championship after Larson beat him off pit road at Phoenix. In 2014, Kevin Harvick overtook him late at Homestead-Miami Speedway after Hamlin’s team gambled on staying out on old tires during a late caution stretch. These were not those seasons when Hamlin did not have enough speed to compete. He had a car capable of winning, but the final pieces never fell into place.

NASCAR’s account of ‘Hamlin’s Most Memorable Championship Heartbreaks‘ documents just how often he has come close. That history really puts his comment in perspective.

Hamlin came to the 2026 Chase as the top seed after four race wins. Yet after that, a string of costly weekends has left him trailing Kyle Larson by 49 points going into Phoenix. The title is still within reach, but the room for another mistake is less and less with each race.

Looking at his past races, Denny Hamlin knows that a change is needed, but desperation is not the answer to it. The recent results are a point of concern for him. At Darlington Raceway, it was contact that damaged his car, and he finished the race in 18th. Then at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he started from the pole but spun while trying to recover track position and then finished 16th. Larson finished second (with Chase Briscoe finishing first), extending his advantage to 40 points.

Hamlin came in at third place at Kansas Speedway, but again Larson won there. Charlotte Motor Speedway brought another top-five result for Hamlin, yet he still lost ground. Finishing fifth should have been a good day for him, but it is a championship fight. Therefore, it was not enough, since Larson finished sixth and still got nine points.

Hamlin’s problem is not a lack of speed. His team has made mistakes on pit road, struggled with some decisions, and also failed to turn a good performance into results that count. In this context, that result would be catching up to Larson. The solution cannot be taking a bigger risk every time the No. 11 Toyota loses ground.

Denny Hamlin explained his thinking with a football comparison himself.

“Well, I mean, you don’t need to throw Hail Marys until the end of the game, you know? And so I think that you got to keep just getting little small gains, you know?”

All in all, he wants better execution, speed, and fewer errors. That approach does make sense for a driver who has seen a replay of the championship getting out of hand again and again, but it’s also risky, since small improvements are not what are going to catch him up to Larson at this point in the postseason.

“But that’s something that we have to start chipping away,” he said, highlighting the urgency. “Certainly the time is going by, and so chipping away will still get it done, but it has to start sooner than later.”

Phoenix is an immediate opportunity for him. Hamlin qualified fourth for the Freeway Insurance 500, while Larson got in at 22nd. That gave Hamlin a chance to recover points, although Larson’s starting position alone guaranteed nothing. There are a lot of factors that go into it, like race strategy, restarts, and traffic, which might still decide how much it’ll play to Hamlin’s advantage.

So to say, Hamlin still has time to change his position, but he cannot afford to leave any opportunities unfinished now.

Hamlin still has hundreds of points available to chase. But with just four races left at Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead-Miami, the clock is ticking. Hamlin has little room for error as the season finale approaches.

There’s pressure building, and no one else understands it better than Denny Hamlin, because so many celebrations have gone only in imagination for that championship trophy that he has been eyeing for so long. This season could end the same way, but it certainly does not have to. There is still time for Team 11 to recover. It all depends on how the race goes tonight.