"I'm so tainted": Denny Hamlin makes an honest admission about his final four chances in 2025

Denny Hamlin recently spoke about whether he believes he'll make the final four this season. Hamlin is heading into the playoffs after one of the strongest regular seasons he's had in recent memory.

He won four races, joint most in the field, also scored seven top 5s and a couple of top 10s. However, it's worth mentioning that in the last few seasons, Hamlin has failed to make the final 4 because of reasons such as Ross Chastain's Hail Melon or a wreck in practice at Martinsville which sent him to the back and ultimately led to him falling short on points to advance.

For the last three seasons, Hamlin hasn't made the final four.

Recently, he was asked whether he expects to make the final four this season. Hamlin claimed that it was his goal at the beginning of every season, as he elaborated via Frontstretch:

"To do that obviously you got to put in some work in the regular season and you got to perform well in the playoffs and I think our record in the playoffs speaks for itself. Our average finish drops every year in the playoffs. We run better every year in the final 10 than what we do during the regular season. It's just a matter of all the other variables.

"Does someone who's way below the cut run horrible? Do they win and get in and knock us out or someone ride the wall and knock us out? I'm so tainted that I'm just very nonchalant with it, like let's just win races and let's see where this thing ends up." [1:05]

Hamlin was also asked whether he feels there's a natural favorite this season to win the championship. He claimed it's hard to predict because of the unpredictable nature of the sport. The JGR veteran said that with there being four or five fastest cars, at least three of them should make the bracket in Phoenix.

However, he admitted that there's 'no gurantees.'

"I do think though this 10 race of tracks should produce a sample size enough to where you're going to see the cars that have good speed get the points and move on. But I don't know. I wish I could tell you how this thing goes because I thought I've known for 19 years and I just never know because I've seen it all," he described. [00:25]

Hamlin added that he's seen so much that when one thinks anything might happen, it usually does and he's either on the good end of it or the bad end.

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Denny Hamlin feels strong heading into the 2025 playoffs

This year, in the regular season, Denny Hamlin tasted victory at four different tracks viz. Martinsville, Darlington, Michigan and Dover. All four of these racetracks are distinct from the other and two of them are in the playoffs. In fact, this is the most wins he's had in the regular season since 2020.

Ahead of this weekend's race at Darlington, Hamlin was asked whether this is the most prepared he's ever felt entering a playoff season. He said (via the aforementioned source):

"It's certainly as strong as I've felt. I've had other years I've felt very very strong. But sometimes things don't go your way and so I've just cautiously optimistic about our speed. We're one of the very handful of cars," Hamlin described. [6:40]

Denny Hamlin claimed that there are no more than four or five cars which are fast every single week. Hamlin hoped he's one of those cars which moves to the final four in Phoenix without facing any bad luck.