LOUDON, N.H. -- Denny Hamlin clinched the top seed for the Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series championship with a top-10 finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Hamlin's seventh-place finish put him 77 points ahead of Ryan Blaney, putting Sunday's race winner three points shy of possibly going to Daytona International Speedway with a chance at the No. 1 seed.

Denny Hamlin started the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season at 126 points behind Tyler Reddick after his driver's streak of three wins in a row ended at Circuit of the Americas. Hamlin sat 23rd in the points standings but didn't stay there for very long.

A week after Hamlin finished fifth at Phoenix Raceway, Hamlin led a statement-making 134 of 267 laps and earned a comeback win that catapulted from 12th to fourth in the standings. In four of the next eight races, Hamlin had one of the best cars and climbed to second in the standings but he still couldn't win -- while Reddick won twice.

Then, at Nashville Superspeedway, everything changed. Hamlin won and cut 25 points out of Reddick's points lead. Again, the following week at Michigan International Speedway, he won. Big. An 11-second win and Reddick's first DNF of the season cut another 46 points out of his points lead, setting up another win the next week at Pocono Raceway that cut the lead to 19 points. 

Despite finishing 14th and 26th in the subsequent weeks, Hamlin took the points lead and never looked back. While Reddick and new challengers, like Ryan Blaney, kept having issues, Hamlin rattled off a seven-race stretch with five top-five finishes and finishes of seventh and 12th that earned him the No. 1 seed.

Over the last 10 weeks, Denny Hamlin has earned the third-most points of any driver (383), behind Ryan Blaney (412) and Ty Gibbs (410). 

If Hamlin replicated that performance in the Chase, he would lose the championship by four points to Blaney with the current seeding. While that is a gross overgeneralization, Blaney and Joey Logano earning as many wins as Hamlin in that stretch shows how Team Penske has been the top organization on a run of four short tracks in the last five weeks. 

Although Penske's cars are the best on the short tracks, the Toyotas have not only had speed there but they've also been the best on intermediate tracks where Penske has had no speed.

However, a reported technical change around the time of the Brickyard 400 could change things and that race showed it. Joey Logano finished third to two Toyotas after charging toward them and not finding a way by in the dirty air that prevented passing all day. 

Darlington Raceway is a beast of its own but could set the stage for later in the Chase when the series will visit intermediate tracks Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway in successive weeks. If Penske can stand up to the Toyotas in those races, they will have an advantage for the rest of the Chase -- Phoenix Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway -- that could make them the champions in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. 

As it stands, Hamlin has the advantage. He clearly has the best average finish on the Chase tracks and his manufacturer's history this season sets him up to get ahead and stay ahead.

Time will tell if that will actually come true, however.