Denny Hamlin Makes Painful ‘Never Want to Race a Car Again’ Admission After 2025 Title Loss

Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamin is beyond disappointed as a late caution cost him the 2025Cup Series championship.

Denny Hamlin Makes Painful ‘Never Want to Race a Car Again’ Admission After 2025 Title Loss

Denny Hamlin (David Crigger/Bristol Herald Courier via AP)

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Lady luck seems to hate Denny Hamlin, as yet again in the NASCAR Cup series, she betrayed the JGR veteran after letting him come closer than ever to a championship. In the season finale at Phoenix, the No:11 Toyota driver leads over 200+ laps only to lose the race in overtime, after William Byron slammed into the wall and the TRD team made a mistake with the pit-stop call.

They made the call to put for fresh tiers, instead two like many other drivers. This gave Kyle Larson, who was previously was never in contention to finish ahead his championship-4 rivals, behind race winner Ryan Blaney. He won his second Cup Series title, without leading a single lap in the finale, while the racer who led most of the race sat inside his car over two minutes post-race, broken.

On his post-race interview, Denny Hamlin didn’t hesitate to show his frustration and disappointment. When asked about the need to have rules around finishing races within the schedule laps, instead of overtime, he made an emotional revelation about how distraught he is and how he is feeling like never to race again.

I don’t know. Golly. In this moment, I never want to race a car ever again. My fun meter’s pegged.

Denny Hamlin responded to reporters.

Further talking about the situation in the same media session, the veteran shared his thoughts on the loss and asserted that he still believes they made the right choice with the tires in the final pit-stop. If they had gone for two tier stop, they could have finished ahead of Larson. But they missed the mark, after loosing position to multiple cars that made short stops unlike the TRD racer.

Yeah, I don’t know. The last couple times I’ve been doing this, either wasn’t fast enough or circumstances. There were some untimely yellows in the last time I did this. Yeah, I’m not really sure. Just takes all of a sudden everything we did preparing was right, where we guessed was right, and just didn’t work out, which is crazy.

Denny Hamlin said.

Denny Hamlin declares he won’t do anything different about his race week

In a separate conversation regarding the same, Denny Hamlin pointed out he won’t do anything different regarding his preparation for the weekend. He was praying at the end for a race ruining caution to not happen, but unfortunately it did.

Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin (Via @JoeGibbsRacing/X)

Nothing I can do different. I mean, prepared as good as I could coming into the weekend. My team gave me a fantastic car. Just didn’t work out. I was just praying no caution and had one there. What can you do? It’s just not meant to be.

Denny Hamlin said.

Talking further about their strategy, the veteran insisted that he made the right call and asserted that he would’ve been rewarded for it, if multiple cars had not made a different call. He also credited his crew for giving him a championship worthy car.

I thought still OK. But we took four tires and I thought that was definitely the right call. Just so many cars took two there, and obviously put us back. But the team did a fantastic job. They prepared a championship car. It just didn’t happen.

Denny Hamlin added.

The veteran has nothing to be ashamed about the weekend, as he did everything right with the car and execution, as it was luck that cost him. He should shift the focus to the remaining two years of his career, as he will get the opportunity to get to 70wins milestone and a couple more shorts at the championship.

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