Denny Hamlin climbed out of his car at Iowa Speedway on Sunday and looked like he had just gone twelve rounds. He had started last. His brakes were essentially gone before the race even began. And somehow, 350 laps later, he was fifth. When someone asked how hard it was to drive the car that way, he did not sugarcoat it.

“I retired at the end of the year trying to do that,” Hamlin said after the race at Iowa Speedway.

Coming from Hamlin, that line lands differently than it would from most drivers. It started falling apart on Saturday. During practice at Iowa’s short, punishing 0.875-mile oval, Hamlin’s brake pedal hit the floor after three laps. Just gone.  At a track like Iowa, brakes are not optional. Drivers need them to settle the car through the corners and get it to rotate. Without that, you are basically guessing every time you turn in.

He qualified 29th. Bad, but workable. Then Sunday morning came around, and his crew made unapproved changes to fix a cooling problem. NASCAR threw out his qualifying result on the spot. He started 35th.

“Wire to wire every lap, obviously not knowing where I was gonna land when I got into the corner,” Denny Hamlin said. “That was a crazy race. Had to go the whole time with that, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”

He still got to sixth by the end of Stage 2. He finished fifth. And with three races left before the postseason, he now leads the championship by 103 points over race winner Ty Gibbs.

“The team did an amazing job,” he said. “I would take that day 100 out of 100 times.”

Here is the thing about Denny Hamlin saying he would “retire at the end of the year” after that drive. He actually is retiring. Just not yet.

His contract with Joe Gibbs Racing runs through 2027 and he has been consistent about it being his last. At 45, he is the oldest full-time driver in the Cup Series. His plan is simple: leave while he is still good, not after everyone has already noticed the drop-off.

He’s at 64 wins. Catching Dale Earnhardt’s 76, which would move him to eighth all-time, is probably not in the cards. He has said openly that he is fine with that.

The No. 11 Toyota already has a next driver in mind. Brent Crews, 18 years old and currently working his way through NASCAR’s development system, is the guy JGR is building toward. Denny Hamlin’s timeline was essentially designed around when Crews would be ready.

JGR is not giving up on keeping him longer, though. Co-owner Heather Gibbs has publicly called him a “spring chicken.” His answer was simple: check back in six months.

After what his body went through on Sunday at Iowa, that conversation might not go the way JGR is hoping.