Denny Hamlin Exposes Kyle Larson’s Secret Advantage in the 2026 Title Fight Against JGR

With four more races left in the 2026 Chase, defending champion Kyle Larson is comfortably leading the table with a 49 points advantage of Denny Hamlin at P2. The title battle is right now Larson versus Joe Gibbs Racing, as the drivers at P3 (Christopher Bell) and P4 (Chase Briscoe) represent the Toyota team.

Alongside his impressive pace helped him secure 2.8 average finish in the first six races of the chase, there is also one key advantage the Hendrick Motorsports driver has against the JGR trio. In the words of Hamlin, having three racers in the title fight makes it hard to for the TRD team to field the best car, while at HMS every good component of the chassis goes to the No:5.

100%. Absolutely. Here’s the reason why, and I don’t think it’s any, it’s a secret to the public. It’s not a secret to the race teams. You have a certain amount of really good chassis. You’re really good chassis are the ones that essentially have more travel than others.

Denny Hamlin said on his podcast.

Since William Byron and Chase Elliott are out of the championship contention, Rick Hendrick’s team is now investing all their good single sourced parts on the No:5 team of Kyle Larson. This place him in the best spot to win the championship, against all other drivers in the contention.

So what travel is, it makes the ability for your car to sit lower in the back. It’s got some good characteristics to it. But Hendrick Motorsports, all these teams know which chassis and parts and components are good. And when you have one contender, all the parts and pieces and the chassis will be stacked to that one contender. So more than likely, if the 9 car say had a really good chassis, well, that will become the 5.

Denny Hamlin added via Actinons Detrimental.

At Joe Gibbs Racing, all four of their cars are still in the title contention, making it impossible to invest on one particular driver. The same is true for Team Penske Racing, considering both Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney has a good shot at winning the Cup. If Denny Hamlin was the only contender at JGR, he would’ve gotten the extra support he needs right now, considering the No:11 team’s recent struggle to execute.

If the 24 cars had a good chassis, one good chassis in their fleet, that will become the 5. If the 48 had a good one, that will become the 5. So, yes, it definitely helps to have one because the teams just don’t have that many elite parts in their arsenal. There’s just not, and we’re talking very, very small amounts, but you stack them all up, and it does make a little bit of a difference.

Denny Hamlin asserted.

Denny Hamlin reveals what to blame for him losing ground against Kyle Larson after Charlotte

On the same podcast, Hamlin talked about losing nine more points to Larson at Charlotte despite finishing one place better than him. This was due to the poor stage one finish the No:11 team had compared to the No:5 team.

The TRD sides poor execution on the pit-stop played a key role in it. One reason for it was the lack of qualifying, as the session was rained out and Hamlin got an unfavorable pit-box after the metric system was used to determine starting positions.

Just didn’t have the long run speed that we needed. I thought the short run was okay. It was decent. I felt like we were a lot better when it was day time… Wish we would’ve qualified. Certainly [think] we could’ve got a little better pit selection there… we gotta pick up the performance. We gotta just execute better, be a little faster, all of the above. Ultimately, we’re giving it all we got right now.

Denny Hamlin said.

The comments from the three times Daytona 500 champion seem rational, but at the same time, he needs to put some blame on himself and his crew for poor execution. It would be interesting to see how everything is going to playout for the star driver in the coming four races of the chase.

Also Read: Brad Keselowski Exposes the Real Reason Why Carson Hocevar is the Most Irritating Cup Driver