Denny Hamlin claims NASCAR ‘was lucky’ as William Byron won Daytona 500 over John Hunter Nemechek

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin has explained how NASCAR got lucky with Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron winning the 2025 Daytona 500.

Denny Hamlin claims NASCAR ‘was lucky’ as William Byron won Daytona 500 over John Hunter Nemechek

John Hunter Namecheck, Denny Hamlin and William Byron (Via IMAGO)

The 2025 NASCAR cup season opener marked history, as William Byron became the first racer since Denny Hamlin to win back-to-back Daytona 500s. He survived the chaos that the race featured the whole event, including the final lap of the race, to secure the win that made the youngest multi-time race winner at the iconic Superspeedway.  

Talking about the Hendrick Motorsports’ drivers win, Denny Hamlin made a surprising claim about its legitimacy via his podcast. He pointed out that if the race was won by someone like Legacy motor Clubs’ John Hunter Nemechek, who finished P5, it would have been bad for the promotion of the sport and declared that Byron winning legitimized the race.

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I think we were really fortunate for William Byron to win that race, truthfully. How do we feel if John Hunter Nemechek was in William Byron’s spot? … I think we got lucky on that front as far as promotion of the sport. William Byron legitimizes it because he won last year and it’s like well, it’s clearly not a game of chance, he’s won two in a row.

Denny Hamlin said via Actions Detrimental.

He the clarified that he wants taking dig at his TRD teammate Namecheck with the comment, instead was highlighting how a legacy MC car winning the race after a huge wreck at the end would have been perceived by the racing community. The frustration of a lot of the NASCAR fans was constrained by the No:24 Chevy’s win.

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So, you’re going to have that argument, but I just think that had it been someone else, you probably have more of a woah, can we do something to fix this? And that’s not a knock-on John Hunter, I just believe people would view it differently. And I think that people already don’t love what they’re seeing.

Denny Hamlin added.

Denny Hamlin highlights how entertainment has taken center stage over racing

In the same podcast, talking about how racing has changed over the years, Hamlin highlighted that entertainment has taken the center stage in NASCAR over pure racing. He backed his argument by pointing at how Byron credited luck for his win instead of the car being faster or his team using a great strategy.

Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin (Via newsminimalist.com)

Entertainment has taken over and what does William Byron say when they ask him, ‘How did you do this?’ ‘I didn’t get wrecked.’ That’s not what you wanna hear. You wanna hear my team brought an amazing car, we had great strategy and at the end, I made the move to win the race.

Denny Hamlin said.

The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran is clearly disappointed with the overall racing product NASCAR has produced in the last few seasons. Many in the racing community shares the same sentiment about the style of racing. It would be interesting to see how the sanctioning body is going approach this situation.