Denny Hamlin is currently 44 years old. Like it or not, he is bound to retire within the next few years. What he would love more than anything before then is winning his first Cup Series title. But his chances of doing so and potentially adding a few more years to his career may rest with the decision that the sanctioning body is going to take about the championship format.
Advertisement
Hamlin spoke about how the current system is flawed on Actions Detrimental yet again. He accused the proponents of the existing format of twisting facts to suit their narratives and stressed that the title-winner being decided based on the result of a single race is simply not viable in motorsports.
His biggest reasoning was that there are other teams and drivers, totally unrelated to the finale, on the field. Hamlin said, “All these teams spend tremendous resources week in, week out to build the best and the fastest cars possible. And they hire the best and the fastest drivers that are possible, to go out there and get the best result.
“But you must create a larger sample size to crown your champion because in one race, anything can happen. Anything could happen. So, everything that I work for can get taken away by someone else who has nothing to do with these championship battles.”
The legitimacy of who is crowned as the champion ought to be rock solid for fans to keep watching the sport. If they don’t believe that the right person is rewarded, they will simply fall out of love with the thrill and the action. And Hamlin doesn’t want to be there in such an outcome.
NASCAR has already promised that it will look into making changes to the format. The latest update is that it is waiting to have a lengthy discussion with NBC Sports about this. The No. 11 JGR driver spoke about how he doesn’t love the idea of the broadcaster having such a big say in this matter, but that’s the way of things. For his part, he is clear that he doesn’t want to keep racing in the current format.
“If they get a legit format down, I might go longer because I feel like my chances would be better on a more typical sample size,” he said. “The one race, I don’t know. My chances are 25%. If you go to 36 races, I think my chances are better than that.”
Hamlin hopes that a more favorable format would be delivered at his doorstep and that this format would finally let him become champion. It remains to be seen if this will happen. As things stand, he is a strong contender for the 2025 Cup Series championship.
