Race #1 - Race #17: Reddick leads NASCAR Cup championship
Race #18 - Race #28: Hamlin leads NASCAR Cup championship
Race #29 - ?: Larson leads NASCAR Cup championship
After taking the points lead at Sonoma on June 28, Denny Hamlin has firmly held onto the top spot, even reaching a triple-digit points lead at one point before the Chase reset.
He started the ten-race Chase with a 25-point margin, which became twelve points after Darlington, nine points after Gateway, and is now erased at Bristol.
Kyle Larson has made himself just the third different driver to lead the standings all year, now a single point ahead of Hamlin with Bristol winner Joey Logano a mere 16 points away in third.
Nothing overly catastrophic has gone wrong in the No. 11 camp, but they've just been average for the past three weeks. The Southern 500 was their strongest showing, but placed 18th after contact with Michael McDowell bent some toelinks, and then recorded finishes of ninth at Gateway and eighth at Bristol.
Hamlin is currently facing his longest stretch of the entire season without a top five finish. At the other end of the spectrum, Larson has tied together three straight top fives to open the Chase.
“We just have to get to running a little bit better," said Hamlin after the race, looking a little bit confuddled by it all. "Today, I thought early on – in the first stage – I really liked my National Debt Relief Toyota. I thought we had a car that would contend for the win, and then second stage, when we took the stage points in stage one that put us to the back, and once we lost track position, it just wasn’t quite as good. I think the track changed on us as well. Then we got caught by that caution, so that was unfortunate. It is the way it is, but we move on.”
The good news for Hamlin is that NASCAR now heads to three consecutive intermediate tracks where he should run strong. Earlier this year, he earned a top five finish at each of those tracks and led a lot of laps (Kansas, Las Vegas, Charlotte), and even won in Vegas.
Even Kyle Larson acknowledged that fact, saying of the upcoming tracks on the schedule: "I mean, it's good (for us to take the points), but there's still so much racing left. Just got to keep having good consistent days. It's three top 5s to open the Chase and looks like leading the points now by just a point. But we're going to some good tracks for us but also good tracks for the Toyotas are Vegas and Kansas, Charlotte. It could easily change a lot here in the next upcoming weeks. But we've just got to be ready for anything and keep plugging away."
