In as many other words, Denny Hamlin agrees with Joe Gibbs Racing competition director Chris Gabehart that Team Penske appears ‘untouchable’ for the Cup Series championship after Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. 

The rules package used at the one-mile track in Loudon is identical to the one used at Phoenix Raceway where the championship will be decided. It’s the short track rules configuration but also the new right-side tires that made its debut over the weekend and will also be utilized in the finale.

Penske has won all three championships at Phoenix during the NextGen car era with Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Logano again. Blaney won the race at New Hampshire on Sunday while Logano ran inside the top-five all race after scoring the pole.

“The biggest thing you have to take away from today, with this aero package and the same tires at Phoenix and a one-mile raceway, the Penske cars are completely untouchable again,” Gebehart told a handful reporters afterwards.

“I know what it’s like to be untouchable. We’ve been fortunate enough to be on the right side of that, but the reality is we have a lot of work to do with this package. And that’s the focus. The rest of it is just noise. We have to get better.”

Read Also:

Speaking on his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin also said the chances are extremely likely that a Penske driver wins the championship if they advance to the finale.  

Put another way, the most likely scenario where Penske doesn’t win the championship is somehow eliminating them in the penultimate round.

“If you’re not a Penske fan, that’s probably what you should hope,” Penske said.

Hamlin was asked if they learned enough from this race, or if something can be done in the next month and a half, all to make a difference and he said it was unlikely.

“If we re-racked and ran tomorrow, we would have the same result,” Hamlin said. “It’ll take an extensive overhauling of philosophy to get another two percent of grip out of our cars. We’re not going to be able to tweak our way to the speed that the Penske cars had. If they carry that moving forward, we’re not going to be able to — we will not overcome that, if it correlates to Phoenix.”

Hamlin said it is likely going to be déjà vu when they get to the desert in November.