Dale Earnhardt Jr. Backs Denny Hamlin in “Mount Rushmore” Debate Amid Bold Championship Prediction This Season
Mar 18, 2026 | 2:30 PM EDT
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Backs Denny Hamlin in “Mount Rushmore” Debate Amid Bold Championship Prediction This Season
Mar 18, 2026 | 2:30 PM EDT
Imago
Image Credits: Imago
Imago
Image Credits: Imago
Is this finally Denny Hamlin’s year after all? For the last few years, every year has started, proceeded, and at times almost ended up being his year. But in the end, it never ended up being his year after all. However, this year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes that Hamlin might just do it, as he made a case for the #11 driver’s greatness.
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Hamlin is better than Yarborough
Speaking on the Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a bold championship prediction for the 2026 season. The NASCAR Hall of Famer also provided his explanation on what he thinks of Hamlin’s legacy in the context of all-time greats.
“Denny Hamlin is my pick for the championship this year,” Junior said.
So far this season, Hamlin has progressively improved his results. He started the season with a 31st-place finish, followed by a 13th, then a 10th, then a 5th, and most recently a 1st-place finish. But while there’s still a lot of races left this year, Dale Jr. claims he has ‘seen enough.’
He then spoke about Hamlin’s claims of not being talented enough and getting where he is mainly on the basis of his hard work. Earnhardt Jr. shot down Hamlin’s theory and claimed he is better than most of the legends of the sport.
“I think he’s better than quite possibly a Cale Yarborough or some of these big names that he looked up to. Couple more years, you might put him on the Mt. Rushmore. You might. I do believe talent-wise he ranks way higher than he wants to admit. He probably deep down inside believes that he ranks higher, but he’s just not going to say it. And so he says, ‘Well, you know, I’m not as good as some of them guys, but I work harder and that’s how I do this,'” Earnhardt Jr. elaborated.
He claimed that there are ‘anomalies’ in NASCAR where there were some drivers who didn’t fall off and kept winning in their late 40s and 50s. As per Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin is one of those, “a unicorn”, a driver who still remains mentally sharp with passion and motivation to take risks.
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Earnhardt Jr. believes Hamlin finally has a system he can thrive in
While Denny Hamlin got quite close to winning the elusive Cup championship last season under the playoff system, this year he’d have a strong chance. This was the theory Dale Earnhardt Jr. proposed as NASCAR employed the Chase championship format for the 2026 season.
“Denny knows how to set himself up early in this system. Talking about the point system that we have this year, Denny knows he’s had to kind of climb out of a hole that he started put himself in early. I think this system will reward a driver like him that can be consistent and win periodically throughout the year,” he said about Hamlin.
Earnhardt Jr. mentioned that all Hamlin needs to do is find a way into the top 3 on the points table, about which he was optimistic. Currently, the #11 driver is 4th in points.
Having said that, the former Hendrick driver emphasized that this is Denny Hamlin’s year, considering the points system, his current momentum heading into one of his strongest tracks in Darlington, and his feeling that the JGR driver will put himself on top of the table at the end of the regular season.
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