As Chase’s top seed, Denny Hamlin is optimistic about NASCAR title bid against surging Team Penske

Heading into the NASCAR Chase, Denny Hamlin is feeling good about his “bad” days.

By his high standards for the No. 11 Toyota, middling performances might be enough for the Joe Gibbs Racing star to capture his first Cup Series championship.

With a seventh place Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway , Hamlin clinched the top seed in the 10-race title run that will begin next month at Darlington Raceway.

“These are our bad days,” Hamlin said after rebounding from a pit-stop problem and narrowly missing a crash on the opening lap. “I feel good about where our team is right now. Everyone is kind of clicking well, and we don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses.”

Hamlin will enter the 16-driver Chase as the favorite with a 25-point lead on second and the best record on the tracks that make up the bulk of the playoff.

Six of the 10 Chase tracks are at least 1.366 miles long, including the 1.5-mile ovals of Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Hamlin’s four victories this season have been at Las Vegas (a 1.5-mile track that will play host to the fifth race of the Chase), Nashville Superspeedway (1.333 miles), Michigan International Speedway (2 miles) and Pocono Raceway (2.5 miles).

“The Toyotas’ strengths are going fast at the high-speed tracks where downforce matters a lot,” Gibbs teammate Christopher Bell said. “These shorter tracks, it seems like the Penske cars have the advantage.”

Second-ranked Ryan Blaney’s victory at New Hampshire was Team Penske’s fourth in the past six races , and three were on tracks of a mile or less in length.

But the team will need to improve on the bigger tracks in the Chase. In the five races on 1.5-mile ovals this year, Penske drivers Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric have combined for only four top 10s, with a best finish of seventh at Charlotte by Blaney.

“Obviously, we need to be a little better,” Team Penske president Michael Nelson said. “We definitely have been licking our wounds after a few of those mile-and-a-half tracks. We’re trying everything through those tracks to be better, and hopefully, we’ll have the right combination.”

Penske should excel on the three Chase tracks that are a mile or shorter — Bristol Motor Speedway, Phoenix Raceway and Martinsville Speedway – but Hamlin also finished in the top 10 on all three tracks at races earlier this season.

“We’re just not as strong as the Penske cars on these types of racetracks,” Hamlin said. “But Martinsville, we are good. Phoenix, we’ve been good. It’s just the last few have not been as strong, but it’s still top fives and top sevens. So it’s something we can work with, and the mile and a halves are certainly something that’s been our strength for a couple of years now. I look forward to getting the Chase started and seeing where it goes.”

Heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, the top 13 spots in the Chase have been clinched, and Bubba Wallace is a virtual lock to advance.

That leaves the final two slots decided between Cindric, Shane van Gisbergen and Ryan Preece , who trails 16th by 31 points heading to Daytona. NASCAR has instituted new aerodynamic and horsepower regulations on the 2.5-mile oval, and there’ll be no practice for the 400-mile race.

“I don’t think any of us know what to expect,” Preece said. “I guess we’re all on a level playing field.”

With consecutive finishes of seventh, fourth, eighth and third, Josh Berry has delivered the longest top-10 streak by a Wood Brothers Racing driver since Morgan Shepherd in 1994. Berry admitted to racing with desperation at New Hampshire as he attempts to land a Cup ride for the 2027 season. A potential landing spot disappeared Monday as Richard Childress Racing announced Austin Hill’s return next year.

“I don’t necessarily like racing like that, but these guys know what I’m up against right now,” Berry said. “Most of them have respect for me, so I think they understand. Knocking everybody out of the way is not sustainable over a Cup season, but in this scenario, you’re just fighting for everything you can.”

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing