As Chase’s top seed, Denny Hamlin is optimistic about NASCAR title bid against surging Team Penske

Heading into the NASCAR Chase, Denny Hamlin is feeling good about his “bad” days. 11 Toyota, middling performances might be enough for the Joe Gibbs Racing star to capture his first Cup Series championship. With a seventh place Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Hamlin clinched the top seed in the 10-race title run that will begin next month at Darlington Raceway.

“These are our bad days,” Hamlin said after rebounding from a pit-stop problem and narrowly missing a crash on the opening lap. “I feel good about where our team is right now. Everyone is kind of clicking well, and we don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses.” Hamlin will enter the 16-driver Chase as the favorite with a 25-point lead on second and the best record on the tracks that make up the bulk of the playoff.

Six of the 10 Chase tracks are at least 1.366 miles long, including the 1.5-mile ovals of Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hamlin’s four victories this season have been at Las Vegas (a 1.5-mile track that will play host to the fifth race of the Chase), Nashville Superspeedway (1.333 miles), Michigan International Speedway (2 miles) and Pocono Raceway (2.5 miles). “The Toyotas’ strengths are going fast at the high-speed tracks where downforce matters a lot,” Gibbs teammate Christopher Bell said.

“These shorter tracks, it seems like the Penske cars have the advantage.” Second-ranked Ryan Blaney’s victory at New Hampshire was Team Penske’s fourth in the past six races, and three were on tracks of a mile or less in length. But the team will need to improve on the bigger tracks in the Chase. In the five races on 1.5-mile ovals this year, Penske drivers Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric have combined for only four top 10s, with a best finish of seventh at Charlotte by Blaney.

“Obviously, we need to be a little better,” Team Penske president Michael Nelson said. “We definitely have been licking our wounds after a few of those mile-and-a-half tracks. We’re trying everything through those tracks to be better, and hopefully, we’ll have the right combination.” Penske should excel on the three Chase tracks that are a mile or shorter — Bristol Motor Speedway, Phoenix Raceway and Martinsville Speedway – but Hamlin also finished in the top 10 on all three tracks at races earlier…