Denny Hamlin says one missing piece of information would have completely changed his Las Vegas strategy. He didn’t know championship rival Kyle Larson sat one lap down when the No. 11 team called him to pit road under the first caution, and Hamlin says he would have stayed on track if he’d known his stop could have helped Larson recover.
Hamlin revealed the communication gap on the latest episode of Actions Detrimental while revisiting the Las Vegas race that turned a potential opportunity to attack Larson’s championship lead into another points loss.
Larson entered the South Point 400 26 points ahead, struggled badly early and fell one lap down after Hendrick Motorsports kept him standing for roughly 26 seconds during a green-flag stop to make major adjustments. Hamlin, meanwhile, started from the pole and controlled much of the opening run.
The first caution created the pivotal decision. Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell and several others stayed on track while crew chief Chris Gayle called Hamlin in for two tires. Larson stayed out, and the reshuffled running order let the No. 5 Chevrolet take the wave-around and return to the lead lap. NASCAR’s Inside the Race later highlighted Hamlin’s pit call as a key part of Larson’s recovery.
Hamlin says nobody told him about Larson’s situation before he committed to pit road. “Had I known that Larson was a lap down … I would have never turned down pit road,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin, though, refrained from using that communication failure to excuse everything that followed. He defended his team and explained that his crew concentrated on maximizing the No. 11 Toyota’s performance while handling its own race.
He also acknowledged that the organization needs greater awareness of its primary championship rival during strategic moments, especially after Larson’s Phoenix strategy caught the team out during the 2025 title finale.
More importantly, the JGR driver accepted responsibility for ruining the speed his team gave him.
After the restart, he went from P9 to P4 and pursued Bell and Ryan Blaney near the end of Stage 1. Hamlin moved into the upper groove while searching for another position, found little grip, and spun with three laps remaining. The car scraped across the track during the slide, damaging the front splitter and rear underbody, reducing its aerodynamic performance.
Hamlin finished the stage 28th and later explained his desire to bag every possible Chase point influenced how aggressively he attacked those final laps.
His problems continued on Lap 170 when the Toyota suddenly lost fuel pressure ahead of another restart. Hamlin reset the system and restarted deep in the field before recovering to 16th. Gayle also accepted his part in the afternoon and said after the race that he wished he had kept Hamlin on track during the earlier caution.
On the other hand, Larson produced the exact opposite recovery. Cliff Daniels and the No. 5 crew accepted the early track-position loss, fixed the car’s handling and gave Larson enough speed to climb through the field.
He eventually chased Briscoe for the victory, hit the wall on the final lap and still finished second. The Las Vegas result increased Larson’s championship advantage from 26 to 40 points with five races remaining.
Charlotte Gives Denny Hamlin an Immediate Chance to Answer Kyle Larson
Charlotte Motor Speedway will now give Hamlin a strong opportunity to recover those lost points because NASCAR returns to the 1.5-mile oval for its fall race for the first time since 2017. The Bank of America 400 will be the sixth event of the 10-race Chase.
Both championship leaders ran well there during May’s Coca-Cola 600. Hamlin won Stage 2, led 75 laps and finished third, while Larson won Stage 1 and finished fifth. Hamlin also owns one career Charlotte victory and has scored top-five finishes there in 2024 and 2026. Larson won the 2021 Coca-Cola 600 after leading 327 laps and sweeping every stage.
Yet, the broader 2026 numbers still favor Hamlin on mile-and-a-half tracks. Before Las Vegas, NASCAR calculated a 2.67 average finish for Hamlin on that track type compared with Larson’s 13.83.
Larson, however, has reversed the championship picture through postseason consistency. He has finished inside the top five in all five Chase races and has averaged 2.2 during that stretch, while Hamlin has averaged 10.8.
Heading into Charlotte, an independent race model currently gives Hamlin an 18.2 percent chance of winning on Sunday and Larson a 12.8 percent chance.
However, the championship probabilities tell a very different story. PodiumOracle’s simulation gives Larson a 76 percent title probability and Hamlin 17 percent after running the remaining races 10,000 times.
Hamlin therefore remains firmly in the championship fight, and Charlotte may actually favor him slightly in a single race. Larson holds the larger title advantage because he already owns a 40-point cushion and has avoided a single poor finish throughout the Chase. And Las Vegas showed exactly why that counts.