Denny Hamlin looked visibly dejected at the end of Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway. Hamlin led a race-high 131 laps, and all he had to show for it was a fourth-place finish.
Hamlin nearly took the white flag as the race leader before Cody Ware, running last, went for a spin. That brought out the first natural caution of the race, and Hamlin failed to finish the deal in overtime. Hamlin, who has said 2027 would be his final year in the NASCAR Cup Series, admitted he took the loss tougher than others because he doesn’t know how many more wins he has left in him.
“Man, it’s so frustrating,” Hamlin said. “I took this one a little tougher just because it’s like, I wanna capitalize. I only got 50 some races left and it’s like, man, I wanna get these wins when I should be winning.
“It’s just not happening. The loose wheel at the end of Martinsville — just a lot of stuff that’s just not going great in the luck category or the create your own luck and not executing category, which is what I chalk most of this up to.”
Another race got away from Denny Hamlin
Several races have gotten away from Hamlin in recent years. Just this past month at Martinsville Speedway, Hamlin had the dominant car, leading 292-of-400 laps. A late-race loose wheel impacted him in the final run, and it was Chase Elliott who ended up in Victory Lane.
Then came Sunday, when Hamlin was almost there to winning his second race of the 2026 season. The caution for Ware changed everything and in overtime, he was unable to defend against Kyle Larson‘s aggressive run to the bottom in Turn 1, which put Hamlin in fourth.
“I mean, obviously it’s not winning. It’s Cody Ware, six laps down wrecking. I don’t know. It just added up,” Hamlin said after the race. “I fell for the same move that [Larson] got me a couple years ago when I was on the inside. I got to learn from those mistakes that I made, not executing those last few laps.”