Denny Hamlin says Michael Jordan is 'finding out'

What is most impressive about Denny Hamlin in 2026 isn’t what he is doing but what he theoretically could have done.

Much to his chagrin.

Think about it: Dover this year was the All-Star Race so it doesn’t technically count but then Hamlin appeared poised to win the Coca-Cola 600 before the rain negated what looked to be a race winning pass on Daniel Suarez.

He’s won three in a row now at Nashville, Michigan and Pocono, and even before the All-Star Race, he finished second at Texas to Chase Elliott. There are no shortage of shoulda, coulda and wouldas in NASCAR. After all, Christopher Bell could stake a claim to several of them this year as well, but the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 team is clearly the team to beat everywhere that isn’t a road course.

This is a driver that suffered the biggest professional adversity of his career in the championship race at Phoenix in November followed by the biggest personal adversity in losing his father in a house fire in December.

His business partner at 23XI Racing, Michael Jordan, kind of challenged him in the final days of the off-season.

“I’ll never forget Michael, when he addressed 23XI in the off-season, he says, ‘What I'm interested to see is what does Denny do.’ He said, ‘after what happened in Phoenix, you either pick yourself up and you respond or you fold. We'll find out.’

“He's finding out.”

Four races into the season, Hamlin was 11th and 118 points behind Reddick for the championship lead. Reddick has just one DNF this season and over the last 12 races so it speaks volumes that Hamlin has now cut that championship gap to 19 with nine races left in the regular season.

Remember, the top seeded regular season driver will begin the 10-race Chase for the Championship with a 25-point advantage over the second-place driver and 35 over third; 40 over fourth and so-on.

Not that it matters, because Hamlin is very adamant that after so many bitter championship defeats, all he cares about is winning races until his expected retirement at the end of next season.

Literally as Hamlin crossed the line, crew chief Chris Gayle told him they were within 20 points, and Hamlin shot back that ‘winning is all that matters’ and praised the team for giving him cars capable of doing it.

He maintained that stance during his press conference after the race.

“I'm just at this point in my career trying to stack as many wins as possible,” Hamlin said. “Points, whatever. Wherever we finish in the championship, whatever. To me it's like ‘wins, wins, wins.’ What is your win percentage? That's what I really, really am trying to continue on a run.”

Hamlin says everyone wants to be able to sweep all 36 races, a virtual impossibility, but ‘it is crazy’ that he’s literally been competitive enough to do just that over the first half of this campaign.

“Yeah, we won four, but man, we could easily have a lot right now,” Hamlin said. “So, I don't know. I don't think I've had a year where it's been this wild and crazy being able to execute. That has been the biggest difference. The last month compared to earlier in the season, the speed is no different, it's just that the execution is better.”

The success, and wins, are even starting to grate on a fanbase that’s surely experienced hot stretches before across Johnson, Gordon, Earnhardt, Petty and Pearson, but this is also Denny Hamlin.

You know, host of the Actions Detrimental podcast, and someone who says ‘talking shit is my superpower.’ The irony this year is that Hamlin actually isn’t talking a lot of shit this year. He’s just winning races.

But again, Hamlin was motivated by the greatest sportsman of all-time in February.

“Well, I mean, when it happened, I'm fresh off of a lot of shit going bad, right,” Hamlin said. “I'm showing up at the team meeting. We're there to give our motivational speech to 23XI on the season, defining what your expectations are as owners, challenge our guys to get better.”

Hamlin says Jordan reminded him that even His Airness went through adversity and parental loss. So Hamlin has been motivated by that, and even those that still boo or tweet him, because he hears and reads it too.

“I think just like everything else, if it's the boos or it's trolls on social media, that's fuel for me,” Hamlin said. “They don't know they're just fueling me. If you're rooting against me, you're not doing it the right way.

“At that point when he said he was interested to see what happens, I considered that a challenge at that point.”

Michael Jordan is finding out and so are we.