Denny Hamlin's NASCAR Chase Letdown

This year’s Chase has been increasingly frustrating for Denny Hamlin. On Tuesday afternoon he explained the ten-race format of NASCAR’s playoffs won’t accurately show his performance this year.

He started the Chase in fourth position, now after two bad results, he’s eleventh.

“Yeah, it gave me a chance to win the Championship, but the Chase format also could put us in a situation where we end up 11 or 12th in points whereby the old system we could finish in the Top 5 because of what we've accumulated and accomplished for the first 26 races,” he said on a media teleconference.

Denny Hamlin

He admitted that he caused the crash, in California, that took him out of the race and dropped him out of contention for the title, then, on Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway he lost an engine ending up 42nd.

“So that point of it is disappointing because you look at the stat sheet. It looks terrible when you finish 11 or 12, when you've been the second, third, fourth best car pretty much all year long,” he said.

“It could happen to Tony (Stewart who led the standings going into the 26th regular season race). He very well could end up in the bottom half of the Chase if he has a bad week, and he's dominated for the first 26 on consistency.”

Right after Saturday’s night race, his emotions had bubbled over, and he complained. "I may not even make the top 10 in points now. We were looking for maybe a championship two weeks ago, and that's what's bad about this points system,” said Hamlin.