Denny Hamlin continues to soak in his NASCAR victories

Denny Hamlin doesn’t know when he will have his last victory — or race for that matter — but the NASCAR Cup Series veteran is enjoying the on-track success even more these days.

Hamlin recorded his fifth victory of the 2025 season Sunday in the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. He now has the most Cup wins this year and his highest win count since winning seven times in 2020.

“You never know when it’s your last,” Hamlin said post-race at Gateway “Could be my last win… We just never know. I try my best to enjoy the moment and do the best I can to rile up the fans any chance I get.”

The Gateway win was also Toyota’s 200th Cup victory. Hamlin now has 56 of those wins and is tied with former teammate Kyle Busch for the most in Cup with Toyota.

At a total of 59 career victories, Hamlin is now one win away from tying Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time Cup wins list. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver previously said he would like to retire among that top 10.

At 44 years old, Hamlin is the oldest full-time driver in the series. When his current JGR contract ends in 2027, he will be 46.

It’s likely that will be Hamlin’s final deal as he has maintained he wants to stop driving while he is still competitive.

“The countdown has begun,” Hamlin said. “I just don’t want to end knowing, ‘Man, those last 70 races, I didn’t really give it my all.’ That would weigh on me well beyond my driving career. There’s no way I could live with the weight on my shoulders knowing that I shipped it in for the last 70 or so races.”

While Hamlin realizes more races are behind him than ahead of him, he is still chasing his elusive first NASCAR Cup Series title. In fact, he has the highest win count for a driver without a title in Cup history.

“It’s always been about number of races (won),” Hamlin said. “The only one I thought about was this year and the Daytona 500, thinking that probably only going to do this twice more. Brickyards, right? I haven’t won the freaking Brickyard. I’m going to have two more shots at it, and that’s it, to round this thing out.”

Yet, winning the championship isn’t a part of his metric or considered in his countdown.

“Championships isn’t one of ’em. Obviously it’s well-documented that I want to get the wins, and I feel like that will carry its weight long after,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin is locked into the Round of 12 of the playoffs. He is safe from elimination heading into Saturday’s Bristol Night Race.