Despite three wins at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Denny Hamlin has all but lost his hopes of clinching the elusive championship trophy this year. With a 70-point deficit to Kyle Larson, Hamlin’s crew chief, Chris Gayle, hopes for a perfect weekend and a stroke of fortune to even allow his driver to win the finale in Miami, let alone challenge for the title.

“You need a max points weekend and win the race and see where it lays from there, and obviously Kyle’s really good there. The No. 5 team’s really good there. So, you know, we would need some help even with that, probably, to have them run what is not their typical race,” said Gayle in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio ahead of Sunday’s finale.

Looking back at Denny Hamlin’s career at the famed intermediate oval, the 45-year-old has managed to win at the venue 3 times in 21 starts. He also has 14 top-10 finishes there and 464 laps led to date. However, every single one of Hamlin’s three victories at the track has come before the Next Gen era.

Cup Series peers such as Larson and Tyler Reddick have proven to have a stronghold over the 1.5-mile-long venue since the introduction of the seventh-generation Cup car. Both drivers are known to be comfortable ‘running the wall’ at Miami, where most of the speed is unlocked on the track.

Larson, in comparison to the JGR veteran, has only two wins in Miami. However, both of them have come in the Next Gen era, the latest of which came last year. The HMS ace has also led more laps at the track, with 645.

Reddick, in similar fashion, won here in 2024 and has finished outside the top-10 only once in the Next Gen era.

Gayle also elaborated on how the venue for the finale, unlike Phoenix in previous years, is a track that favors raw speed and good tire management over bold strategic calls.

“Homestead’s not a place that lends to strategy where you’re going to get yourself in a spot to where you probably wouldn’t get stage points if you qualify up front and run up front all day. If you have a fast car, you’re keeping tires on it, keeping it up front the whole time, and then you’ll be able to have a max-point day,” added the No. 11 crew chief.

With all things said and done, Hamlin’s chances to win the championship come down to Larson crashing out of the race without scoring any stage points (being under nine points), and the No. 11 team executing a perfect points race by sweeping all the stage wins, plus the victory at the end.

Denny Hamlin and co., as a result, have decided to not mount unnecessary pressure on themselves. The No. 11 team will try to do their best this Sunday, as will Kyle Larson.

“If I get top three in stage one, it’s locked up. So, being plus 67, I would say there is less pressure than I’ve felt going into the Final Four. But as I had more opportunities in those Final Fours, I felt less and less pressure, almost to the point of none,” said the California native in a recent interview.

Hamlin’s razor-thin odds of a perfect weekend, coupled with Larson’s mindset going into the race, it seems the No. 5 driver’s third title clinch is inevitable.