The 2026 NASCAR season began with Tyler Reddick coming all guns blazing. He won three races to open the season and added two more to his tally in the next six races. However, Denny Hamlin steadily cut down the gap to the 23XI driver with a dominant run of his own last month and finally overtook him at Sonoma. While Hamlin seems to be peaking at the perfect time to close the regular season and closer to finally winning that elusive Cup championship, Kyle Petty feels the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is possibly peaking too soon. 

Speaking alongside Steve Letarte on the “Inside to Race” podcast, Petty pointed out NASCAR’s unpredictability, warning that Hamlin’s current form could cool off just as quickly as it arrived. In a short clip from the podcast shared by Petty on X, Letarte first spoke about Reddick’s mechanical troubles at Chicagoland, saying,

“Reddick, now look, it’s not his fault, but the simple fact is something through the radiator, through the oil cooler, those are gonna happen over the course of the year. Now we have over a 40-point gap to Denny Hamlin. Is it too soon? Can Denny Hamlin continue this absolute tidal wave of momentum long enough? Can he carry it all the way through the Chase?”

At one point, Reddick held a 100-plus-point lead over Hamlin. But the No. 11 JGR driver went on a hot streak from mid-May to mid-June. It began with a podium finish at the Coca-Cola 600, and three consecutive victories in Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono followed.

Petty agreed that Hamlin has indeed been the benchmark lately. However, he cautioned against the idea that his current form would automatically sustain through the playoffs. Petty cited the example of Tony Stewart’s 2011 season to make his point. The then-Stewart Haas Racing driver won nothing in the regular season, but kicked off The Chase with two consecutive wins and won a total of five of 10 races to win his third and final Cup championship.

“NASCAR has always, and you know this, Steve, always been a season of streaks,” said Petty. “We saw the greatest streak ever, to me, is Tony Stewart, who couldn’t hit a bull in the b*tt with both hands, gets in the Chase, in the playoffs, and wins five of 10, and ends up as a champion because he got hot at the right time. And I’m not sure that Denny can maintain this level and that this team can maintain this level.”

Rather than focusing solely on Denny Hamlin, Petty emphasized the depth within Toyota’s lineup as another reason the championship picture remains far from settled.

Brad Keselowski explains how Toyota redefined dominance in 2026

It is no secret that Toyota has out-developed Chevrolet and Ford in 2026. Toyota has 12 wins in 19 races, while Chevrolet is at six and Ford has only one. Ahead of the eero 400 at Chicagoland last weekend, RFK Racing driver Brad Keselowski commended Toyota for its superior decision-making.

He feels that the level of collaboration and data-sharing between teams at Toyota is on a much higher level than the other two OEMs, which seemingly prioritize one top team each. Speaking about how only select teams have been contending and winning championships in the Next-Gen era, Keselowski said,

“I’ll give a lot of credit to Toyota for this, as they’ve recognized that that stalemate is not necessarily good for the sport or for them as an OEM, and they’ve done a lot of things to push elite collaboration amongst their top organizations so that they have, for reference, two kind of A organizations rather than an A-B-C.

“As I’ve seen to date, the other OEMs have not done that, and Toyota is making them pay for that with results on the racetrack. They deserve credit for that. It’s a really great behind-the-scenes move that they’ve taken full advantage of and in a way that is legal and probably should be.”

At Chicagoland, seven finishers from the Top 10 were Toyota cars, a historic first for the Japanese manufacturer. Moreover, with the Chase getting closer, this momentum is sure to unsettle the other two OEMs.