It wasn’t Denny Hamlin’s fault. No way, no how.

By all measures, Hamlin would’ve, could’ve, and should’ve won Sunday’s season-ending NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway. Now that we’ve had some time to mull over and try to digest how things transpired, it clearly wasn’t Hamlin’s fault that he failed to finish ahead of Kyle Larson to win what would have been Hamlin’s first career Cup crown, something he’s been waiting more than 20 years to earn.

And now he must wait at least another year to try again – if he is able to reach the Championship 4 round again (or however NASCAR may call the final round of the playoffs if rumored format changes become reality next season).

Hamlin and his No. 11 Toyota should have won Sunday’s race without question. He had the most dominant race car, he led the most laps (208), he was the best there was on restarts, and even with a faulty clutch, he found a way – a workaround, if you will – to minimize the wear and tear on the clutch. As it turned out, he didn’t lose the championship due to the clutch, but rather because of a terrible mix of bad timing and bad luck.

Hamlin and William Byron put on an exciting show

To his credit, William Byron gave Hamlin all he could handle for much of the race. It was a battle for the ages, one of the best we’ve seen in NASCAR history.

The two drivers were neck-and-neck throughout the scheduled 312-lap event (it eventually went seven more laps into overtime), with either Byron one spot ahead of Hamlin, or Hamlin one spot ahead of Byron, for more than 30 percent of the race, according to a statistic mentioned on the NBC Sports telecast.

Byron tried to will his disintegrating tires to go three more laps, pushing as hard as possible to try and get one more chance to overtake Hamlin, who was only three laps from the checkered flag and his first Cup championship.

Unfortunately for Byron – and as it turned out, for Hamlin as well – the right front tire on the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet blew out, sending Byron into the wall and bringing out the last caution of the race. Instead of finishing first or second, Byron ultimately wound up a disappointing 33.

But no one was more disappointed in how that set of circumstances played out than Hamlin himself, as well as fans watching on TV or those in attendance at the sold-out event. You could see and feel the excitement growing with each closing lap that clicked off with Hamlin in the lead. Folks were primed to celebrate Hamlin finally achieving that ever-elusive championship.

It would have been a storybook ending to a storybook storyline. Hamlin, who just a few weeks ago became only the 10 driver in Cup history to earn 60 or more wins in his career, was by far the class of the field. He was hoping to give team owner Joe Gibbs his sixth career Cup championship.

And what’s more, Hamlin was prepared to dedicate the approaching win to his seriously ill 75-year-old father, Dennis, who was in too poor health to travel to Phoenix. His son somberly said after the race that he didn’t know if this would be the last time his father would ever see him race, albeit on TV.

Hamlin owes his career to his father and mother, who remortgaged their house twice to help pay for their son’s racing exploits. It was a shaky potential for return on investment, but the Hamlins believed in their son so much that they wanted to give him every chance to maximize his talent and potential.

And Hamlin did just that. He is, without question, a first-ballot inductee whenever he becomes eligible for the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

There was one other individual that Hamlin also intended to dedicate the race – and the hoped-for win – to: Joe Gibbs’ late son, J.D., who passed away from a degenerative neurological disease in January 2019. It was the younger Gibbs who essentially discovered Hamlin when he was a young, raw talent and was racing late models on short tracks up and down the Eastern seaboard.

Hamlin also owes his career to the younger Gibbs. Their relationship was more like that of brothers than that of a driver and team executive. In fact, when Hamlin and his fiancée welcomed their third child earlier this year, their first son, they named him after the late Gibbs in his memory.

NASCAR fans – even those who may not necessarily be Hamlin fans – took to social media, furious at how the Toyota-powered Hamlin came up short, finishing fifth while Kyle Larson snuck by on the final lap to earn his second career Cup championship. No, the fans did not blame Hamlin; in fact, countless fans did their best to console him. They directed their fury on something else.

Will NASCAR fans or Hamlin ever forget Sunday’s outcome?

Two other things came to mind after Hamlin’s effort came up short.

The first is that perhaps Chris Gayle, in his first season as Hamlin’s crew chief, erred in calling for his driver to take four tires on the final pit stop, hoping that the fresh rubber would quickly move him back to the front when the race restarted on what would be a three-lap, green-white-checker finish. Many fans felt this was a wrong call, and that, just like Larson, Hamlin should have also gone with two instead of four.

But that wasn’t the problem. On Friday, Corey Heim faced the same situation, where he went for four tires on a late race caution. Many felt he lost the race there, but he went on to grab the title with it.

So why could that not happen on Sunday? Well, as insider Steve Letarte pointed out, the difference was just the “on-track circumstances,” and that entire situation got reduced to “a coin flip”. Hamlin’s ex-crew chief, Chris Gabehart, also used the very same metaphor to describe the unfortunate situation. And Hamlin, too, did not blame nor question Gayle’s call.

Then there are the conspiracy theorists, who believe NASCAR somehow intentionally sabotaged Hamlin’s championship bid because of the ongoing contentious legal dispute between the sanctioning body and 23XI Racing – which Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan co-own – and Front Row Motorsports. Those two teams continue to challenge NASCAR’s charter system of ownership, alleging anti-trust violations. A trial is slated to begin on December 1 (if it isn’t settled out of court first).

Could NASCAR have been so nefarious as to keep Hamlin out of victory lane, potentially fearing he might say something controversial related to the lawsuit in his victory lane speech or interviews? While that’s highly doubtful, it’s going to be hard to convince those conspiracy theorists otherwise.

Could Sunday prompt Hamlin to race another five more years?

Sure, Sunday’s terrible turn of events will be something Hamlin will never forget. “Golly, in this moment, I never want to race a car ever again. I mean, my fun meter is pegged,” he said in the aftermath.

But knowing his spirit and demeanor, his competitive side, and his determination, don’t be surprised if he is right back in the championship mix next season and potentially for the following season or more.

Why, Hamlin is so competitive that he may not retire until he finally earns that elusive championship – even if he has to wait until he’s 50 years old (he turns 45 on November 18).

How things turned out for Hamlin is reminiscent of two other NASCAR greats, Mark Martin and the late Dale Earnhardt.

Hamlin is this generation’s Martin, without question, having reached the Championship Four five times plus an additional runner-up earlier in his career prior to the expanded playoff format. Martin, meanwhile, finished runner-up a record five times in his Cup career but never won even one championship. Ironically, Martin retired in 2013, the year before the Cup playoffs were expanded and included the Championship Four format.

As an aside, Martin exclusively told EssentiallySports that he was picking Hamlin to win the championship on Sunday.

Hamlin likely knows how Dale Earnhardt felt

And then there is the comparison between Hamlin and Earnhardt. While Hamlin has won the Daytona 500 three times, Earnhardt won it just once – in 1998, after a seemingly incredulous 20 attempts. But Earnhardt’s frustration year after year of trying to win NASCAR’s biggest race, only to come up short time after time, has been a significant inspiration of sorts for Hamlin, who has frequently compared Earnhardt’s long wait to win the Great American Race to his own long title wait.

It’s going to be a long time before Hamlin recovers from what happened to him on Sunday. Even though this was one of the best seasons of his 21-year Cup career, and while it didn’t ultimately end the way he hoped, he gave it his best shot and sadly came up short. Sure, people may say Larson did not deserve or earn his second Cup title, that he was in the right place at the right time, but that his overall season did not equal all the achievements Hamlin had in the same season.

Unless he pulls a Carl Edwards and unexpectedly walks away – like Edwards did after falling short of the championship to Jimmie Johnson in 2016 – Hamlin will be back next season, a bit older and a bit more jaded.

But no matter what, while he’s incredibly saddened and frustrated for not finishing the storyline in Cinderella-like fashion, Hamlin has nothing to be ashamed of. He gave it his all, and there is absolutely no way, no how, that it was his fault.