NASCAR star Denny Hamlin explains why he's better than ever at 45 years old

Denny Hamlin might be the oldest full-time driver on the NASCAR Cup Series grid, but he also has a pretty strong claim to being the best.

Following his second victory of the season at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday night, only Tyler Reddick has more points and victories than the Joe Gibbs Racing star, and when it comes to laps led, it isn't even close.

Hamlin dominates that metric by some distance, having led for 757 laps so far this season. That's 188 more than Kyle Larson in second place, and 395 more than Reddick in fourth.

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Denny Hamlin's secret to NASCAR success at 45

Nashville also happened to be the 62nd Cup Series victory of his career, and after the race, Hamlin was quizzed on whether or not it's harder to win in NASCAR now compared to earlier in his career, and why he's still able to have so much success despite being in his mid-40s.

"It’s definitely harder now," Hamlin stated unequivocally. "The cars are closer than they’ve ever been.

"Now, no doubt that the Toyotas in general have a little more speed. When I say a little, it’s nothing like the gap that it used to be when you could build your own cars and you had a new chassis every six weeks. I mean, you could outpace someone with your car speed."

Hamlin continued, revealing what he feels sets himself and his team apart from their rivals. Not raw speed, not talent, but experience, process and a desire to keep learning.

"So I don’t know, the drivers play more of a factor now. Certainly the process that we have on our 11 car, I think, sets us apart from others," he explained. "Then just I think it’s our ability to keep learning. This was a great example of it.

"I don’t know why I still have the speed that I have, but I just, I approach every weekend the same as I always have, but I keep a large notebook every week, and I just go through it, and I jot things down that I think are important that are going to make me win next time if I fail this time.

"I don’t know, I still — I love the process more than I love winning, truthfully."