Denny Hamlin said Tuesday that he needed time to process his defeat in Sunday's Cup Series championship race before getting back in a car.

Hamlin was less than three laps away from winning the 2025 Cup Series title when William Byron crashed, resulting in a caution. Hamlin took four tires on the ensuing pit stop, restarted in ninth and couldn’t catch Kyle Larson, who restarted fifth and finished second to beat Hamlin and capture the championship.

The sting of defeat cuts deep in motorsports, and right now, nobody feels that pain more acutely than Denny Hamlin. Standing in the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge on Tuesday, where the NASCAR community gathered for its annual awards celebration.

Denny Hamlin says he’s doing as well as one would expect two days after losing the NASCAR Cup Series championship at Phoenix Raceway.“There is not a whole lot of second-guessing, I would say,” Hamlin said.

The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team entered the race as the clear favorite, with Hamlin leading 208 laps and appearing set to finally capture his first NASCAR Cup Series title.

Denny Hamlin suffered what was arguably the biggest heartbreak of his two-decade career at the Phoenix Raceway on Sunday. It cost him the championship he so desperately craved, and leading up to the moment it slipped away,

Denny Hamlin pondered the idea of whether or not he would step away from full-time NASCAR competition if he were to win the Cup Series championship on Sunday (Nov.