It took a rain delay and multiple overtime restarts before sealing the deal, but Denny Hamlin‘s victory last week at Dover was the latest in what has been a vintage season for the driver of the No. 11 car. The 11th-winningest driver in Cup Series history now has four trophies on the year — the most of anybody in the field — and he ranks fourth in the standings with the third-best average finish, third-best average Driver Rating and top-ranked Adjusted Points+ index of any Cup regular this season.
Denny has had plenty of great seasons before, of course. He‘s made the Championship 4 on four separate occasions, in addition to finishing second in the Chase in 2010 and third during his rookie season of 2006. He also led the Cup Series in wins in both 2010 and 2012, and is one of just 11 modern-era (since 1972) drivers to have six different seasons with at least four wins.
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That‘s impressive enough by itself. But it cannot be ignored that Hamlin is doing all of this at age 44 this season, tying him for the fourth-oldest driver ever to rattle off a four-plus win season in modern Cup Series history — only Harry Gant (age 51 in 1991), Mark Martin (50 in 2009) and Bobby Allison (45 in 1983) did it at a more advanced age.
By conventional NASCAR wisdom, drivers shouldn‘t be anywhere near this good at age 44. Even the greats tend to slow down — literally and figuratively — by their mid-40s. If you chart the cumulative share of career wins, top fives and top 10s for all retired modern-era drivers with at least 10 Cup Series victories, a clear pattern emerges: success peaks around age 34, begins a meaningful decline by 40 and is all but entirely out of fuel by 45.
Through their age-44 seasons, the same age Hamlin is now, our group of great historical drivers had claimed 93.4 percent of all the checkered flags they would ever win in their careers, with 92.6 percent of their eventual top fives and 91.3 percent of their lifetime top 10s. Whatever time they had left as a contender was running out fast.
And yet, Hamlin isn‘t backing off the gas at this stage of his career — he‘s speeding up. By multiple measures, this is his best performance since NASCAR introduced the Next Gen car in 2022. The only recent year that might compare is 2021 — the final season of the Gen 6 era — when he led the Cup Series in average finish and ranked second in both Adjusted Pts+ and Driver Rating. In fact, 2025 is just the third time in his career that Hamlin has finished among the top three in all three of those categories, joining 2021 and 2023.
Again, it‘s remarkable that all of those performances have come during this, Denny‘s third decade as a NASCAR driver. After a few seasons of seeming decline in 2022 and 2024, Hamlin‘s numbers this year are just about as good as they‘ve been throughout his whole time in Cup, with the only competition being his previous peaks from 2009-12 and 2019-21.
It‘s the kind of late-career campaign that invites real speculation that this could finally be the year for Hamlin … or if not now, then when?
By now, it‘s widely known that Hamlin is easily the winningest driver to never win a Cup Series crown. And if you visualize the all-time leaderboard of drivers without a championship, it becomes clear that he and Martin tower over the rest of NASCAR‘s title-less elite:
One would think that a season like the one Hamlin is enjoying in 2025 would eventually end his championship drought and secure him his first-ever Cup title. But of course, we‘ve had that same thought before: Denny‘s career arc has long been defined by near-misses and close calls, stretching back nearly two decades.
That‘s part of what makes this season so compelling. At +425, Hamlin trails only longtime nemesis Kyle Larson (+350) in DraftKings‘ championship futures odds. And after last week‘s Dover win, my model projects him as the favorite to win again on Sunday at Indianapolis — a track he‘s never conquered in 16 tries, but one whose close cousins (Pocono, Michigan) have historically suited him very well. If Hamlin does take another checkered flag, it would mark his second back-to-back streak of the season — something only the serious title contenders can manage.
But the truth is, no amount of midseason success will mean much if Hamlin‘s postseason journey finds a way to go sideways the way it so often has. That‘s always been the story with Denny: Brilliance in the regular season, heartbreak in the playoffs. And so we‘re left wondering — again — how many more chances like this he‘ll get. How long can a 44-year-old driver keep his championship window open before he either gets his long-awaited breakthrough or Father Time finally slams it shut for good?