Will Denny Hamlin actually stop competing in the NASCAR Cup Series full-time? The question is now seemingly much more difficult to answer. This year, Hamlin has already won three races, is now in second place, and recently put on one of his best performances to date. Will he truly retire if he finally wins the championship that has eluded him for years, or will success entice him to return? If he continues racing, some people still think he has a better chance of succeeding if he stays at Joe Gibbs Racing rather than moving to his own 23XI Racing organization, despite what this season’s results indicate.

Why Joe Gibbs Racing gives Hamlin the best shot

“If he wins a championship, he’s winning a championship with Joe Gibbs racing and everything that goes along with that. And no matter how good 23XI has been this year, going into a 23XI car is a step down. And I think that he’s at the top of his game now”.

That was Michael McCarthy’s – aka “Large” from Barstool Sports – take on the Rubbin’ is Racing podcast while discussing Denny Hamlin’s future – and more precisely, the increasing belief that he may make his final championship run with the organization that shaped his career rather than a team he personally co-owns.

23XI Racing appeared to be the undisputed Toyota powerhouse at the beginning of the season. The team, which is co-owned by Michael Jordan and Hamlin, took off right away thanks to Tyler Reddick. Early in the year, Reddick won a series-high five races, including the Daytona 500.

But then Denny Hamlin started doing what Denny Hamlin does best. He made his breakthrough in Las Vegas while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, and with back-to-back victories at Nashville and Michigan – both after starting from the rear – he totally turned the debate around the championship.

In particular, the Michigan victory altered the tone completely, as he won by more than 11 seconds, marking his 63rd victory. And all of a sudden, Denny Hamlin is only 51 points behind Tyler Reddick. This makes it very evident that the current “Toyota superiority” isn’t limited to the 23XI.

If anything, Hamlin’s comeback has served as a reminder to everyone that Joe Gibbs Racing can still provide championship-level speed when things click. And that matters because Hamlin’s entire Cup career has been tied to JGR. He has raced the No. 11 Toyota exclusively for Joe Gibbs Racing since making his debut in 2005. Over 60 Cup victories, several Championship 4 appearances, and one of the most fruitful driver-team partnerships in modern NASCAR history have resulted from this collaboration more than 20 years later.

And that brought McCarthy to this: “I don’t see a universe where Denny Hamlin is winning races by 11 seconds and he walks away and his date to walk away is a year from now. I don’t think he’s going to lose some mental acuity or kind of thing. I don’t know if that means that he signs a one-year deal with Joe Gibbs and says, “I want to give it one more shot.” I don’t know where he walks away.”

Well, earlier this season, when asked outright whether he’d run beyond 2027, Hamlin said: “I’m not really sure. I think that I’ve given [Joe Gibbs Racing] enough of a heads up that they’re working on the plans for beyond. So as long as those all go as planned, I would, I still assume that the end of ’27 is it”.

And on SiriusXM, he framed the whole decision around fear of decline rather than a fixed date: “My ego is very paranoid of the downtrend. And it is going to come. We don’t know when it is. I just want to get ahead of it before it actually does”.

But even JGR isn’t fully buying it. JGR president Dave Alpern said after Hamlin’s Nashville win: “He may have to fight us to leave… I’ll believe that when I see it.”