8 hours ago
1
Ryan McGee
Nov 3, 2025, 04:42 PM ET
Even now, nearly 24 hours after the fact, it is difficult to properly process what happened to Denny Hamlin in the 2025 NASCAR season finale.
"In this moment," he said Sunday night, "I never want to race a car again."
The greatest driver in 77 years of NASCAR racing to never engrave his name on the coveted Cup had produced arguably the greatest season of his two-decade career and had dominated the season's final event. His goal was to be the highest finisher of the Championship 4. He did that, steering through an obstacle course of an evening that threw everything it had at the 44-year-old with a portfolio of past heartbreak in season-finale title chances. There were bad pit stops and near-misses and a clutch that was softer than marshmallow, but yet he still won the pole position and led 208 of the race's scheduled 312 laps, including the last 28 in regulation ... before that regulation became overtime.
What happened next was difficult to accept for those who watched it on screen or from their seats -- all horror movies are -- but it was even more impossibly incomprehensible to those who were behind the wheels of the race cars on Sunday night. Even the beneficiary of it all.
"Honestly, I can't believe it still," confessed Kyle Larson on Monday afternoon, calling in from Phoenix after only an hour and half of sleep, a night lost to celebrating his second Cup championship, only the 18th driver in NASCAR history to do so. But also mixed into the cause for his insomnia was more than a little bit of survivor's guilt. "It's such an odd feeling of, you're so excited because you won the championship, but you know, I do have a heart. Denny is a great competitor and a good friend. To see somebody that's just gotten so close every time to win in the championship, and have it in their fingertips, doing everything right throughout the day and weekend and get it snatched from him late ... When I finally get to see him later tonight, I just don't even know what to say. Like, I'm saying, 'Sorry.'"
"Sorry" is exactly what Larson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron said to Hamlin when they were on the podium together in the post-race media center. It was Byron, a member of that Champ 4, desperately trying to stay within striking distance with Hamlin late, who hit the wall and brought out the yellow flag that hit the reset button that caused the overtime that sent all the leaders onto pit road. It was during that final pit stop that Hamlin -- taking four tires when others took two or less -- lost the lead, the race and the championship.
It was on that same pit lane where countless competitors lined up to try to console Hamlin following the checkered flag, after he had ultimately dropped to sixth in the race and second in standings, three points behind Larson, who finished three spots ahead in third place.
It was certainly not the first time that a racer had lost a championship that seemed so inevitable. It was also not the first time that many other racers had come to the side of a rival's car to hug their crestfallen neck. But this moment was also singular because it was such a unique combination of the two.
In 1998, when Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500, the crew members of every other team famously lined up to high five the man who had finally snapped a two-decade losing streak in the sport's biggest race. In 1984, when Richard Petty earned his 200th career victory, his opponents also joined in on the celebration, even Cale Yarborough -- the man who had lost to Petty by fractions of a second -- stuck around for the postrace picnic with The King and the President, Ronald Reagan. The Petty and Earnhardt families were once again surrounded by their fellow racers after the deaths of Adam Petty in 2000 and Earnhardt the following year. In July 2001, the sport celebrated with Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he won the first race back at Daytona following his father's death in the 500 five months earlier.
Over nearly eight decades, there have been plenty of instances where triumphs and tragedies both have united the cliquey Cup Series garage, but never had they all been swept up in the same wave of emotion because of what a racer had failed to accomplish like we saw happen on Sunday night in Phoenix. Even when it was a driver like Hamlin, who has made a career out of being divisive, be it looking toward the grandstand and announcing to the crowd "I just beat your favorite driver" or using his podcast to call out rivals or taking the entire sport to court with antitrust claims, which he will do in December.
"That's because we have all seen how hard Denny has worked in seeing all that he has accomplished, so he deserves to be a champion," Larson continued. "I hope someday, before he hangs it up, he can experience what it's like. And I think it'll be an extremely rewarding feeling for him. Especially now."
It is a reminder of what Hamlin has done to deserve that title that no one wants: Greatest To Never Win It All. In the annals of NASCAR history, that's a three-driver race.
Junior Johnson, aka the Last American Hero, won 50 races as a driver with no championship -- though, as he often liked to remind us, he never ran a full season in search of a title. Mark Martin won 40 races and finished in the top five in the Cup standings 13 times, including a stunning five runner-up efforts. Hamlin earned his 60th career win in October, the victory that gave him his title shot at Phoenix, tied for 10th on the all-time victories list and that includes three Daytona 500 wins. This was his 10th time finishing in the top five in the final standings and his second runner-up.
All of Hamlin's near-Cups have come during NASCAR's Chase/Playoff postseason era. This season has been punctuated with meetings of a postseason exploratory committee, of which Hamlin has been a member. Entering Phoenix, there was still some debate about the scrapping of the current one-race, four-driver, highest-finisher-takes-the-Cup format that has been in place since 2014. When Hamlin battled his way to the front for the final time, there seemed to be the faintest bit of "This still works, we'll show you" fight in the format.
Now, anyone left who dared consider even the tiniest bit of support, is looking over the smoldering remains of Denny Hamlin's 2025 season and saying, "Yeah, to hell with that." And yes, that includes the man who has now won two Cups via that very one-night bracket.
"I think we all would feel like we have a better opportunity to win a championship if it was more races that factored into it," said Larson. "So, if that's 36 races or ten races or four, whatever the number is, I think I would feel like I have a better opportunity than just coming down to one race."
And why is that, champ?
"Because, as yesterday showed, you could have the best car and be doing the best job like Denny was and not leave the champion. That doesn't feel right. And we are all certainly feeling that today."
