Denny Hamlin Isn’t Buying the ‘Chase Elliott Missed It’ Narrative in Defense of NASCAR Playoffs

Chase Elliott missing the playoffs for the first time in his Cup Series career had dealt a huge blow to several of his loyal fans and the general NASCAR community. However, despite his elimination from the drivers’ playoff, the Hendrick Motorsports driver did manage to park his car into the owner’s playoff. Meanwhile, fellow NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin recently spoke about Elliott and how well he had done all season long.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver argued on his podcast show Actions Detrimental that Elliott deserved a place in the postseason. Hamlin also discussed how the current playoff format was not up to the mark considering how half the field makes it through instead of making it a prestigious event.

Denny Hamlin thinks Chase Elliott was good enough to make the playoffs

While speaking on his podcast, Hamlin mentioned, “I hate to say it, but some of the teams that squeak in its like c’mon, it’s just I don’t know. I think it needs to be a little bit more prestigious. It’s okay to have a big name, miss it…”

This led to his co-host Jared Allen chiming in with the fact that a big name has indeed missed the playoffs, the big name being Chase Elliott, to which Hamlin replied, “He missed races, he missed races. His car is in, so that tells you, that means he was good enough this year. Chase Elliott was good enough to make the playoffs.”

Allen further mentioned, “I think we have enough competitors in the Next Gen era. I mean 12 would be wild…”, to which Hamlin interjected, “It’s almost half the field, Jared… Half the teams in the league make the playoffs, half the teams? I mean come on. Might as well say everyone makes it.”

Jared then mentioned how in the NBA half of the teams do make the playoffs.

Hamlin doesn’t get NASCAR determining the season champion with one race

Later on, in the podcast, the discussion shifted to how NASCAR determined how the season champion was decided with just one race. His co-host agreed with the current format.

But Hamlin argued, “I’m just saying it’s, I think it’s interesting that it’s what you’re doing now. Nothing matters except for the last race and so, you won a championship just means that you won a race. It doesn’t mean that you were the best through the season. It just means you won a race.”

Previously as well there have been several discussions among prominent members of the NASCAR community who have not agreed with the one-race championship decided format. After all, someone could have done average all season and made it to the championship four somehow, only to win the championship. Meanwhile, the driver who actually performed exceptionally well, but ran out of luck at Phoenix, would not get the recognition they deserve.