Denny Hamlin said Tuesday that he plans to race in 2026 but that he’s going to need some time to get over what happened at Phoenix on Sunday.
Hamlin lost out on what would have been his first championship in gut-wrenching fashion on Sunday at Phoenix. Hamlin dominated much of the race, but a late caution for William Byron’s flat tire erased Hamlin’s seemingly insurmountable lead with only three laps to go. After Hamlin’s team put four fresh tires on his car on the ensuing pit stop, Hamlin got stuck in traffic on the final restart of the race as Kyle Larson won the title after his two-tire stop put him ahead of Hamlin for the restart.
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In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s race, Hamlin said that “in this moment, I never want to race a car ever again.” It was easy to chalk that up to his emotions in the minutes after the race was over.
Tuesday, Hamlin said he was still processing what happened in the final laps.
“I plan to, I have a contract to, but at this point there’s just absolutely no way that would even — I don’t even think about the race car right now,” Hamlin said. “Yeah, I’m going to need some time on this one.”
Hamlin then said that “I’ll get over it, it’s just going to take a minute.”
The 44-year-old announced a two-year contract extension with Joe Gibbs Racing during the season. He won six races in 2025 and at Phoenix led 208 of the race’s 319 laps. Yet Larson won the title without leading a single lap as he finished third and Hamlin was sixth.
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Larson did score the most points of any driver over the course of the 36-race season; there’s a strong argument that he was the best driver of 2025 even if he didn’t win over the final 24 races of the season. However, the finish to Sunday’s race has fallen flat for many in and around NASCAR, especially as the sanctioning body appears to be ready to move on from its one-race, winner-take-all title format for 2026 and beyond.
As Hamlin ponders what could have been in his most recent chance at a first Cup Series title, he also could be preparing for a trial against NASCAR. The 23XI Racing team that he co-owns with Michael Jordan is one of two teams suing NASCAR over the sanctioning body’s franchising agreement with its teams. Settlement discussions (so far) have not yielded a resolution in the suit and the trial is scheduled to start on Dec. 1.
