Denny Hamlin "Fortunate" to Maintain Point Lead After Gateway

Heading into the NASCAR Cup Series Chase for the Championship, Denny Hamlin was the overwhelming favorite to take home the championship. He won the regular-season championship with ease, and it just seemed that he and crew chief Chris Gayle could do no wrong.

After two underwhelming races to begin the 10-race battle for the championship, Hamlin is just fortunate to cling to a nine-point advantage in the standings. After a rough 18th-place outing at Darlington to start things off, the Joe Gibbs Racing camp hoped that Hamlin could rebound with a big day at World Wide Technology Raceway.

That never materialized, as Hamlin was never much of a threat in the Enjoy Illinois 300. Then, the driver endured a sluggish pit stop, which mired him deep in the pack late in the race, and he suffered from subpar restarts all afternoon.

In short, it was a true struggle for Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team on Sunday at Gateway. However, thanks to attrition and chaos down the stretch, Hamlin was able to scratch and claw his way to a ninth-place finish on what was a tough day.

“Not a great day for sure," Hamlin said after the disappointing race. "I wasn’t good on restarts. I couldn’t get the car to do what I needed to on restarts, and then obviously we had that bad stop which put us further back with a car that wasn’t very good on restarts and a driver that wasn’t good on restarts. Just a bad combination. Needed others to have issues to get a good finish out of it.”

Fortunately, Hamlin was able to benefit from the misfortunes of others, and on a day that several Chase contenders suffered catastrophic results, including Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe, Chris Buescher, and Daniel Suarez, who all failed to finish the race, a ninth-place result was honestly not too bad of an end result.

That being said, Hamlin's 25-point lead that he had to kick off the Chase has been shaved to just a nine-point advantage over Kyle Larson, who reached victory lane for the first time in his last 51 starts in Sunday's race.

With his grip on the championship point lead weakening, is the pressure beginning to mount for Hamlin?

“No. I think we are so fortunate," Hamlin stated emphatically. "We were strong last week, and this week we were not strong, and still, we maintained the lead."

Hamlin is encouraged that he and his No. 11 team can once again hit their stride over the final eight races to put them in a position to finally collect their elusive first Cup Series championship together.

"With all of the tracks coming up, we have a good notebook on," Hamlin said. "Here was the first one where we were coming back with a new package. We haven’t been good all year with this package at this track for the first time. I feel like we’ve been given a second chance."

Hamlin continued, "We just have to go and be better now.”

As he and his No. 11 team strive to stop the bleeding, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Bristol Motor Speedway next weekend for the next leg of the Chase. If Hamlin can notch a solid result in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Saturday, September 19, it would go a long way toward righting the ship in Hamlin's potential championship-winning season.

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