{"id":25674,"date":"2025-07-26T14:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/25674\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T14:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:34:14","slug":"nascar-star-denny-hamlin-calls-for-championship-changing-cup-series-shakeup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/25674\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR star Denny Hamlin calls for championship-changing Cup Series shakeup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Gibbs Racing star Denny Hamlin<\/a> has called for NASCAR <\/a>to make a big change to how it crowns the Cup Series<\/a> champion. <\/p>\n

\nCurrently, the Cup Series winner is decided via a playoff format, with 16 drivers qualifying come the end of the regular season, and then competing over four rounds and 10 races to crown a champion at Phoenix. <\/p>\n

\nREAD MORE: NASCAR Qualifying Today: Indianapolis start times, schedule and how to watch live on TV<\/a> <\/p>\n

\nSome have called for the playoffs to be scrapped altogether, with the argument being that the best driver across the entire season does not necessarily become the champion. <\/p>\n

\nLast year, for example, Joey Logano won the Cup Series title at Phoenix in November after an excellent playoff run, but in the regular season, he finished ninth. The season before, Ryan Blaney had finished 13th in the regular season, but went on to peak at the right time and win the championship at Phoenix. <\/p>\n

\nWhilst Hamlin is not one of those suggesting an overhaul of the system, he has called for a championship-changing tweak to the playoffs to be made. <\/p>\n

\nREAD MORE: NASCAR announce driver DISQUALIFICATION at Indianapolis<\/a> <\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin calls for NASCAR playoff change<\/p>\n

\nCurrently, the championship round is a single race, held at Phoenix but set to move to Homestead next year, whereas the rounds of eight, 12, and 16 are all three-race rounds. <\/p>\n

\nThe Joe Gibbs Racing star believes that this isn’t right, and that the championship round should also be held over multiple races. <\/p>\n

\n\u201cI certainly would be in favor of a championship round,\u201d Hamlin said on the Dale Jr Download podcast<\/a> following his win at Dover. <\/p>\n

\n“You have all the other rounds, why not a championship round? I think there\u2019s enough compelling stories that TV could make it work.\u201d <\/p>\n

\nThe Joe Gibbs Racing star also said: \u201cI think that that would reward the better champion,\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot that there\u2019s been a champion that\u2019s not been deserving, but it\u2019s certainly the bigger the sample size that you give, it\u2019s going to be more indicative of your top drivers that perform week in, week out like you talk about. Not just one particular week.\u201d <\/p>\n

\nNASCAR confirmed in January that they were set to consider changes to the playoff format for 2026, but as of yet, no tweaks have been confirmed. <\/p>\n

\nA move away from the playoff format is off the table, however, with Steve O\u2019Donnell, NASCAR\u2019s chief operations officer saying in January: \u201cWe\u2019re not going to go away from playoffs,\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019ll absolutely look at what form the playoffs take in the offseason. You always learn. \u2026 But playoffs in and of itself … you cannot argue with the quality of racing that the playoffs have delivered. <\/p>\n

\n“You can talk about the format if we do some different things, but absolutely we\u2019re going to stick with it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\nNASCAR HEADLINES: Kyle Busch delivers confident career statement as Joe Gibbs Racing announce new driver deal<\/a><\/p>\n

Related\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Gibbs Racing star Denny Hamlin has called for NASCAR to make a big change to how it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,3140,3932,578,576,3631,12101,5793,634,8354,44,8455,12188,82],"class_list":["post-25674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cup-series","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-gpfans","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-joey-logano","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-news","tag-phoenix","tag-simmey-hannifin-donaldson","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}