This is starting to look at a championship year for Denny Hamlin. He came into 2020 on the heels of six wins and a Championship 4 appearance last year. Back in February, he came out of the gates to earn his second straight Daytona 500 triumph. Unfortunately, he struggled a bit on the west coast wins (1 top 15 in 3 tries). But, since the COVID-19 break ended, you can make a solid case that Hamlin is the one to top for the title this Fall.

In 10 starts since, Hamlin has two wins and seven top five finishes now. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has four top five finishes in his last five starts on the season including a runner-up on Saturday afternoon at the Pocono Raceway.

Hamlin, says that while Toyota looks a bit slower in the speed department in comparison to last year, he doesn’t think the sport is manufacturer driven right now.

“I mean, I think the Chevrolets came off real strong in the first few races, especially the West Coast Swing,” Hamlin said on Saturday. “Seems like certain teams have stuff going right now.  We’re in contention to win each and every week.  The 12 has been up front each and every week.  The 4 and those guys.

“It seems like it’s not as much about manufacturer right now and how good your car is as what teams are hitting the setups, getting them close right off the truck.  That seems to be the most important thing right now.  But I think we have closed the gap a little speed-wise, for sure.”

Hamlin, endured a bad vibration throughout the final green flag stint but still chopped Harvick’s lead down to less than a second and nearly won.

“The only thing I kind of saw, I probably should have ran the bottom there coming to the white,” Hamlin said when asked what he could have done different on the final laps of passing Harvick for the win. “We were making some good time on the bottom.  I overthunk it, thought he was going to try to go down there.  I ended up running his line and messed up.  That’s about it.

“I thought I optimized my lap time that whole run.  I think we ran him down from four or five seconds, something like that, on the same tire strategy, on the same lap.  Just didn’t work out.”

Hamlin, went on to say that he felt like he had the best car out there on Saturday and that they were boxed in and had to take two tires there in the end due to being in the wrong restart lane.

“We were just in a box.,” Hamlin said. “I knew I was racing essentially the 18 and the 4 going onto that last restart.  I didn’t get a good restart.  The 4 got around me.  I was on the bottom.  I knew that was going to be the race for the win.  I knew I had to optimize lap time.  I lost a spot there after I got tight on one of the corners on the restart.

“It wasn’t a total clean day.  If it was a clean day, I thought we had the best car and we were going to win.  I let the Ford get out there five seconds before we pitted because he got that great restart.  I think he restarted eighth and was second two laps later.  I was stuck back there in seventh after restarting fifth.  That inside line was dead.  You couldn’t go anywhere.  I just drew the wrong straw.”

Now, he’ll get rewarded with a 19th place starting spot on Sunday as a result.

Hamlin, said on Friday that he thought whoever got good finishes on Saturday would struggle to get all the way to the front a day later.

“I think the race is plenty long enough as to where if your car is good, you’ll make up some positions,” Hamlin said of the second race of the weekend. “Getting back to the front will be difficult. Without a doubt, it will be difficult for somebody to win both races simply because the track is a little harder to pass at unless you have a superb, dominant car. Even if you have that, it’s going to be difficult to really pass guys simply because the big aero that you have there when you’re behind someone.”

Hamlin, did say that a couple of top five finishes would be great still and that they can strategize their ways there on Sunday.

“If you get out of there with a couple top fives, it’s a good weekend,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver continued. “If one of them can be a win, that’s a very, very good weekend. You definitely have to set your goals even though you want to win both. You can still get back to the front with strategy in certain places, but I think that’s the goal.“