Is 2024 Denny Hamlin's Year?

Denny Hamlin's 20 years in the Cup Series has been what you could only dream for as a young prospect with 54 wins and countless other impressive stats. However, there has been one thing that's eluded Hamlin every single year; a championship. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has finished in the top 5 of the standings 10 times, making it half of his career. This has been the only remaining criticism of Denny and gained him the label of being a choke artist, but this year could rewrite all of that.

To grasp the importance of winning a championship for Denny, I think we need to dive into each time Denny "choked" away the championship starting with the first instance in 2010. Coming into this year, Jimmie Johnson had won the title four straight times and looked unstoppable, but the #11 Fedex team had other ideas. Denny was leading the points heading into the final race at Homestead and looked poised to win it all, but that came to a screeching halt both literally and figuratively. Early into the race Denny Hamlin was stuck in the middle of the pack and needed to get up front to retain the championship lead. Unfortunately he made contact with another car sending him spinning and damaging the splitter. Denny couldn't recover from this and lost to Jimmie Johnson. 

The other major instance of choking where Denny looked like he had the championship wrapped up was in 2019. Due to the playoff format, everything came down to one race and the 11 team has never been favored in this position. However, heading into Homestead Denny was keeping up with his other two teammates in the Final 4 and had a real shot at winning the race. The choke job came from the pit crew rather than Denny himself. On a crucial pit stop the team tried to put tape on the grille of Hamlin's car, but this piece of tape was far from ordinary. This piece was so huge that it covered the majority of the grille which of course made the engine start to overheat very quickly causing Denny to pit again to remove it and deleting any chance he had at winning the championship.

Other instances where Denny lost out on the chance to race for a championship include 2017 where he and Elliott started their beef. In the Round of 8 Hamlin spun Elliott for the lead at Martinsville after a late restart. Denny failed to capitalize on this and didn't win the race meaning he either needed to win another race or point his way to the final round, but Elliott wanted to make sure that didn't happen. In the penultimate race at Phoenix, Elliott made contact with Hamlin causing Hamlin to blow a tire, slam the wall, and end his race taking him out of the Final 4. The other case is 2022 when Ross Chastain made the greatest move in NASCAR history in riding the wall at Martinsville to make up the necessary points to pass Hamlin in points and get into the championship round. Ultimately this didn't matter as Brad Keselowski would be hit with a dq which would've given Ross enough points to get in without the move.

All of these have kept Denny Hamlin from winning a championship despite how successful he has been. This year though seems different. Through 11 races, Denny has won three of them making him tied for the most wins on the season. The difference between Denny and who he's tied with is that Hamlin has been much more consistent. The finishes may not show it as he only has one top 10 outside of the races he's won, but Denny was fighting Larson for the lead at Texas and would've been in the leading group at the end of Talladega before wrecking in both races. The past month has very much seemed like Hamlin vs Larson and I don't see that changing any time soon.

The Next Gen car was made to increase parity within the series and while it has accomplished just that, the cream of the crop always rises to the top. At 43 years old, Denny is making the bid to be the best driver in the Cup Series and is doing all he can to make this his championship year. Simply looking at his age, it's hard to believe that Hamlin has many years left to race full time, but on the track he looks like he's still in his prime. Time will tell if Denny can pull it all together for that final race at the end of the year, but everything so far has showed Denny could easily win it all this year.