Denny Hamlin had a chance to take control at Martinsville Speedway. He started from the pole, led early and appeared to have the No. 11 Toyota exactly where he wanted it. Then came a decision that changed his afternoon. Hamlin stayed out while other front-runners pitted, and the fresh tires soon made their advantage impossible to ignore.
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By the time he recovered, the damage to his championship position was already done. His post-race comments also revealed just how he feels about heading to Homestead.
“But we’ll go there and do the dog-and-pony show and weep and act like we can do it. But we just didn’t capitalize. It’s not a Chase we capitalized on, and we certainly did not execute to our best ability.”
Hamlin’s frustration was not simply about finishing sixth. It was about watching another race slip away despite having a car capable of competing at the front. The Martinsville strategy call brought back a problem that has followed him through the Chase: Joe Gibbs Racing has had speed, but has not consistently made the right decisions to turn it into results.
Hamlin had expected his team to pit, especially after seeing other drivers head down pit road. Instead, the No. 11 stayed out, gambling on making it to the stage break without stopping.
That left him on worn tires while competitors had already taken fresh ones. A caution at the wrong time then made recovering track position even harder.
“I saw everyone pitting, and I was waiting for the call. I thought he was just waiting late, maybe running long. But then, with about 40 laps left in the stage, I realized we were going to go the whole way. At that point, we’d made our bed, and it was just a dirty, old, stinky bed that nobody wanted to be in.”
The gamble also exposed a problem that Hamlin believes has become harder to overcome in modern NASCAR. A driver cannot simply put his head down and pass his way through the field anymore. The Next Gen cars run close enough in speed that track position often matters more than a small advantage in outright pace.
“You have to be two-tenths faster, and there’s just not enough speed between the field. I would just get stuck behind whoever it was.”
Hamlin had found the pole and initially controlled the race. Once he lost that advantage, however, he could not get back to the front quickly enough. He also pointed out that a longer green-flag run might have helped, suggesting the race needed to reach the 40-lap range for his strategy to become viable.
That leaves Homestead-Miami Speedway as his final opportunity, but the points situation makes the task considerably harder. William Byron won the Martinsville race after leading 362 laps, while Chase Elliott finished second. Kyle Larson recovered from going a lap down to finish ninth, and Christopher Bell came home 10th.
Larson now leads Bell by 67 points and Hamlin by 70. Under the cumulative Chase format, neither rival can rely on a points reset at the finale. Larson needs only nine points at Homestead to secure the championship, regardless of what Hamlin or Bell accomplish.
Hamlin still has to show up and race, and that is precisely what his dog-and-pony-show remark acknowledges. He will make the championship trip and compete as though the title remains within reach. But he is no longer hiding his disappointment behind the usual postseason optimism.