Denny Hamlin is starting to believe a championship is possible

There have been so many heartbreaks over nearly two decades

For much of this decade, Denny Hamlin hasn’t wanted to talk about that elusive NASCAR Cup Series championship, but instead reaching various goals focused on number of victories.

Under the old playoff format, it would either happen or it wouldn’t, and there was extraordinarily little he could do with so much variability. For example, Hamlin dominated the championship race last year under the old Final Four format at Phoenix Raceway but was denied the title due to the timing of a caution with three laps to go.

Kyle Larson went on to win his second championship but that perceived injustice, combined with Jesse Love winning the O’Reilly Series championship over 10-win Connor Zilisch, combined to force a format change.

Hamlin took the championship lead from Tyler Reddick after last week at Sonoma Raceway and it seems like a fait accompli that he will enter the Chase for the Championship with either a 25-point advantage or a 25-point deficit -- both viable odds.

So is he finally allowing himself to believe a championship, in his penultimate season, is a realistic outcome?

“I certainly feel like the destination of where you want to go is more in your hands,” Hamlin said on Friday during a press conference at Chicagoland Speedway. “The sample size is bigger.”

However.

“This thing could come down to a green, white, checkered at Homestead,” Hamlin added. “We don’t know. But at least there are other races and restarts that happened that counted just the same, the nine races before that.

“I like it for that reason that I don’t think that one freak race or incident or win just completely changes the outlook of your championship hopes. I’m very optimistic from the standpoint that generally the bigger the data set the better off our chances are going to be.”

Hamlin has a two-point championship lead over Reddick and 104 over Ryan Blaney.

Hamlin entered the season finale in 2010 with a 15-point lead over Jimmie Johnson but was involved in a crash. He was in the Final Four in 2014, 2019 and 2021. The latter came in a similar fashion as last year, denied due to a late caution and pit stop.