Denny Hamlin suffered a heartbreaking loss in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix last season, watching the elusive title slip through his fingers in overtime. With the Chase format returning in 2026, Hamlin is offering an early prediction for who will be the NASCAR champion this season.
On this week’s episode of Actions Detrimental, Hamlin expressed his approval of the new 10-race Chase playoff format. While he believes it likely slants which drivers will be best-positioned to win the Cup Series title, he sees that as something that should happen.
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“I’m very confident in this, here’s my prediction for the year. Whoever the champion is is going to finish in the top 3 of the regular season. The champion will be in the top 3.”
Denny Hamlin on who will be the NASCAR Cup Series champion in 2026
The future Hall of Famer has been advocating for years to see changes made to the playoff format. Finally, NASCAR announced in January that it was moving back to the 10-race Chase championship format for the 2026 season. It came with several tweaks that Denny Hamlin is a fan of.
First, the winner of the race receives 55 points. This is a 15-point increase from the previous points system and gives the driver who reaches victory lane a significant points boost over whoever finishes second. It still incentivizes winning without rewarding a playoff spot to a driver under the win-and-in format.
Related: Winners, Losers of the New NASCAR Championship Format
Another key change made to the format is the points reset when the 10-race Chase for the 16 drivers begins. The regular-season champion receives a significant advantage, starting the Chase with 2,100 points, while the second-seeded driver starts at 2,075 points and the third at 2,065 points. There is a five-point drop for each seed after that.
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Hamlin acknowledges that under the new system, there is a real chance a NASCAR champion is decided before the final race at Homestead-Miami. However, as he points out, that would mean a driver performed so well during the Chase that they were the clear-cut champion of the sport that season.
“They’re going to give the regular-season champion a head start, as they should. He earned it, whoever it is, they earned it. If they clinch a week early, they f—— earned it, leave ’em alone. If you clinch after nine races of a 10-race playoff, you’re the best.”
Denny Hamlin on NASCAR’s 10-race Chase Championship format
Realistically, we’ll head into the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami on Nov. 8 with three or maybe four drivers within striking distance points-wise for the championship. Unlikely under the old format, each of those drivers will have earned it through both their performance over the entirety of the regular season and consistency throughout the first nine races in The Chase.
Related: NASCAR Predictions 2026, Projecting 16 Playoff Drivers
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