Denny Hamlin entered the 2026 Chase on a roll, with the kind of mojo that made many of us believe he would finally get that elusive Cup title. However, that same mojo seems to have disappeared four races into the post-season.
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The JGR driver sits second in the standings and has consistently collected points. However, the form that defined his regular season has been missing when it has mattered most. According to Kevin Harvick, that slide in form is becoming impossible to ignore.
“I don’t think so,” Harvick said on the Happy Hour Podcast, when he was asked if Hamlin’s Kansas performance represented a return to his pre-Chase form. “With where the 5 was at this weekend, and based upon what we’ve seen in the first three races, it’s not as good as what it was pre-Chase.”
Entering the Chase, Hamlin was the No. 1 seed after a regular season featuring four wins, 14 top-five finishes, 17 top-10s, four poles, and 880 laps led. He also ranked first in season-long speed, while NASCAR’s preseason Chase analysis identified him as the strongest projected driver across the postseason tracks.
Four races later, that authority seems to be slipping. Hamlin finished P18 at Darlington after running inside the top 15 before contact with Michael McDowell damaged his car. He then finished ninth at Gateway, eighth at Bristol and third at Kansas. The results have kept his title hopes alive, but they have not stamped the kind of authority that made Hamlin appear untouchable.
Continuing in the interaction, Harvick noted that the problem was not necessarily Hamlin’s points position. It is what has happened at the front of the field around him.
“I think that the tide has kind of swung a little bit. Even Bell, right? Like, he was good, he finished around fourth, but now, all of a sudden, it’s shifted to others. This weekend was the 5, and if you go back and look at some of the other races, it was the 12 or the 22.”
The No. 5 reference is Kyle Larson, who has become a prime example of the shifting momentum. Larson won Gateway, finished second at Bristol and then dominated Kansas, scoring the maximum 76 points after winning both stages and leading 235 of 267 laps. He grabbed the championship lead at Bristol and extended it to 26 points over Hamlin after Kansas.
That has been one headache for Hamlin, whose consistency has kept him second, but Larson’s maximum-point performances are threatening to further increase the gap very quickly.
But that is not all. Harvick says there is an even bigger concern than the lack of a dominant race. When the conversation moved to whether Hamlin had even produced one unmistakable moment that could prove he was in control of the Chase, Harvick simply said, “Not only a race, but not even a moment of like, ‘Man… woof.’”
Unfortunately, Hamlin’s slide has come at the worst time for him in the postseason. He had won three consecutive races during one stretch of the season and entered the Chase with a 25-point advantage over Ryan Blaney after the points reset.
Let’s dive into a few examples of other drivers in the postseason.
Despite his own difficult start, Blaney has shown flashes of speed, including a P5 finish at Kansas after battling traffic from P25. Sitting 91 points behind Larson, he said he needs to win two of the remaining six races to have a realistic shot at the championship.
Chase Briscoe is another reminder of just how fast the night changes. He passed Larson for the lead at Kansas and held it for 23 laps. For a while, it looked like this was the breakthrough performance that would help Briscoe make up ground. Instead, his Toyota became increasingly ‘loose’ and contact with the wall helped Larson reclaim the lead. Briscoe finished P4 and left Kansas 123 points behind Larson, seemingly conceding his title hopes for the season.
For Hamlin, however, simply stacking results may not be enough. He still has six races to change the narrative, and his regular-season record shows he can still dominate. But with Larson now producing the performances Hamlin was expected to deliver, the question is: did Hamlin peak too soon in the season?
Harvick’s assessment therefore cuts to the heart of Hamlin’s championship campaign. The driver who looked like NASCAR’s most complete contender before the Chase has not yet produced a postseason performance that makes the rest of the field stop and take notice.
Four races are gone. Six remain. And Hamlin still has time to rediscover the form that made him the driver to beat. No. 11 needs to arrive sooner rather than later. We say ‘needs’ because this might be his final chance to get that one thing that has always eluded him.