NASCAR Cup Series star Denny Hamlin believes that he is in the best form of his career, but vowed to keep working on a big weakness of his season so far - restarts.
After missing out on the championship at Phoenix last November in heartbreaking fashion, Hamlin has made a very strong start to the year at Joe Gibbs Racing, winning one race so far and sitting second in the standings through 12 races.
If not for some untimely cautions, he'd likely have more victories and points, but the race win and $1 million prize fund in last Sunday's All-Star Race will surely soften those blows.
The best indicator of Hamlin's dominance comes when you look at laps led in the Cup Series so far this year. Hamlin sits at the top on 624, accounting for 19.7% of the laps he has run in the Cup this season, and 125 clear of Kyle Larson in second.
| Pos | Driver | Starts | Laps | Laps Led | Laps Led % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denny Hamlin | 12 | 3,170 | 624 | 19.7% |
| 2 | Kyle Larson | 12 | 2,898 | 499 | 17.2% |
| 3 | Christopher Bell | 12 | 2,958 | 325 | 11.0% |
| 4 | Ryan Blaney | 12 | 3,096 | 249 | 8.0% |
| 5 | Tyler Reddick | 12 | 3,172 | 201 | 6.3% |
| 6 | Chase Elliott | 12 | 3,171 | 196 | 6.2% |
| 7 | Brad Keselowski | 12 | 3,150 | 160 | 5.1% |
| 8 | Joey Logano | 12 | 2,847 | 115 | 4.0% |
| 9 | Bubba Wallace | 12 | 3,015 | 89 | 3.0% |
| 10 | Shane Van Gisbergen | 12 | 2,992 | 80 | 2.7% |
| 11 | Ty Gibbs | 12 | 2,759 | 78 | 2.8% |
| 12 | Corey Heim | 3 | 727 | 77 | 10.6% |
| 13 | Carson Hocevar | 12 | 3,171 | 71 | 2.2% |
| 14 | Chase Briscoe | 12 | 2,937 | 69 | 2.3% |
| 15 | Chris Buescher | 12 | 3,171 | 68 | 2.1% |
| 16 | Ross Chastain | 12 | 3,140 | 56 | 1.8% |
| 17 | William Byron | 12 | 3,080 | 34 | 1.1% |
| 18 | Austin Cindric | 12 | 3,055 | 26 | 0.9% |
| 19 | Ryan Preece | 12 | 3,172 | 25 | 0.8% |
| 20 | Michael McDowell | 12 | 3,124 | 21 | 0.7% |
| 21 | Kyle Busch | 12 | 3,014 | 19 | 0.6% |
| 22 | John H. Nemechek | 12 | 2,981 | 19 | 0.6% |
| 23 | Josh Berry | 12 | 2,838 | 15 | 0.5% |
| 24 | Erik Jones | 12 | 3,163 | 13 | 0.4% |
| 25 | Zane Smith | 12 | 3,119 | 10 | 0.3% |
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Denny Hamlin’s on his biggest remaining NASCAR weakness
In light of his exhibition victory at Dover last Sunday, such statistics saw Hamlin declare that he is on the best run of his career on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio this week.
At the same time, though, the Joe Gibbs Racing star offered a frank assessment of where he must continue to improve, including one major weakness.
“If we go back to the last six to seven races of last year, now the first 12 or so of this year, this is competitively my best 20-race stretch in my history of racing,” Hamlin explained.
“Like speed-wise, if we're turning left and we're on an oval, we're there and we're really, really fast and so no weaknesses other than my restarts. I've got to work on that.
"That's something I've got to get better at because these races definitely come down to the shootouts at times. So getting better on the short run, continuing to get better on the road courses. I felt like I've had a solid COTA, solid Watkins Glen.
“We're putting it all together right now, and so certainly we're happy about where things are at."
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