Denny Hamlin: Why He Is Not a Legitimate Sprint Cup Chase Contender

This would have been a much more difficult argument just before the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup began in Chicago. Now, three races in with seven to go, Denny Hamlin has driven the No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry completely out of contention.

Hamlin made a promising recovery during the last regular season race at Richmond. After qualifying 28th, he managed to solidify his spot in the Chase with a clutch top-10 finish.

Unfortunately for him and Joe Gibbs Racing, every effort thereafter has kept him in last place of all 12 Chase contenders.

The numbers do not lie: at Chicago, New Hampshire and Dover he has qualified, respectively, 27th, 28th and 11th. This has translated into finishes of 31st, 29th and 18th, respectively.

In parallel to his backslide from the qualifying results to his finishes, he has fallen further behind the Chase leaders in each successive week.

Hamlin is in last place by a wide margin. Never mind that he is 68 points from the top;  he is 27 points behind 11th place driver Ryan Newman and 49 points from Jeff Gordon in ninth place.

Put another way, even if he were to win the fourth Chase race at Kansas with the most laps led and receive the full points bonus, he will still be in 10th place in the Chase should Jeff Gordon improbably finish dead last in 43rd place.

Those are dire straits. 

It is at least somewhat ironic. Conventional wisdom gave him a fighting chance at the Chase's outset.  There were only three contenders who most analysts and experts were ruling out even before it began: Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. 

Newman and Earnhardt Jr. have performed as expected. Stewart has blown expectations and opinions out of the water after winning the first two Chase races. Hamlin is really the big surprise, negatively speaking.

Finally, the broadcasters calling the race for ESPN at Dover noted that he has been seeing a sports psychologist to help him cope with the disappointment of losing the Cup in the last race of last year.

That is not an insignificant thing, if true. After all, we are very nearly one year removed from that.  He needs to either shorten his memory or reflect on failure only in the offseason.

However, it could help better explain why he has gone from a season in 2010 where "all we do is win" to a 2011 where he did very little of that.

While Denny Hamlin is not mathematically eliminated from this year's Cup, his chances of winning are infinitesimal and not legitimate.

At this stage, the more interesting question to ask is this: Is Denny Hamlin a legitimate candidate to break the top 10 in the final Chase standings?