{"id":283997,"date":"2025-11-15T04:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283997\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T04:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:47:09","slug":"hamlin-highlights-larson-behavior-after-nascar-title-drama-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283997\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamlin highlights Larson behavior after NASCAR title drama – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denny Hamlin paid tribute to Kyle Larson after agonizingly losing out on the NASCAR<\/a> Championship to the No. 5 car.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month at Phoenix Raceway, Larson<\/a> sealed his second Cup Series championship in dramatic circumstances<\/a>. The 33-year-old didn\u2019t lead a single lap but snatched the win in overtime, ensuring Hamlin\u2019s wait for the title will go on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hamlin led for 208 laps and dominated from pole before the caution flag came out with three laps remaining as William Byron suffered from a tire issue. The 44-year-old dropped several spots in the pit lane as his crew changed all four tires, and Larson clinched his second Cup Series championship.<\/p>\n

While much of the support in Phoenix was for Hamlin, Larson was still deserving of his title. The Hendrick Motorsports superstar enjoyed a solid season, winning three races in the regular season before navigating through the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The headlines in the wake of the NASCAR Championship were all about Hamlin and how the wait for his elusive title will continue. But speaking on his \u2018Actions Detrimental\u2019 podcast, Hamlin made sure to give Larson his flowers for his reaction to winning a second Cup Series title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the fans made it a lot easier. I mean, the competitors made it easier,\u201d Larson said. \u201cI got to give so much appreciation to Kyle Larson and how gracious he was during all this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cVery humble during all this and certainly during the banquet giving myself and my team the props that we did deserve it in that final race and, you know, he did nothing wrong. His team knew that they had to do something to try to win that, know they played the game as it was meant to be played.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely have a deserving champion in the No. 5 team, and they scored more points than anyone else the entire year. I don\u2019t think anyone should ever question the deservingness of Kyle Larson\u2019s championship because he definitely did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin added: \u201cWhat did I say out in the Toyota display at Phoenix when they say like, \u2018Who are you a fan of?\u2019 Who did I say? I said I\u2019m a fan of Larson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

\u201cI just\u2014 if I were a race fan only, I certainly admire his ability behind the wheel and to do special things, and so if I didn\u2019t win, I wish it was a Toyota \u2014 wish Chase would have got it \u2014 but obviously Larson is one that I\u2019m close with off the track and have a ton of respect for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure that that No. 5 team, there is no asterisk beside this one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin paid tribute to Kyle Larson after agonizingly losing out on the NASCAR Championship to the No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,3932,4384,4386,2332,634,103103,82],"class_list":["post-283997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-hendrick-motorsports","tag-kyle-larson","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-championship","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283997","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=283997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}