Denny Hamlin critiques NASCAR's current Championship format - "I don't love it coming out to one race"

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin expressed his disregard for the current NASCAR championship format because of the possibility that another driver who is not in contention can disrupt the battle at the top.

The current NASCAR Playoffs format ensures that a total of sixteen drivers enter the final stages of the championship. According to the finishing positions, eight of the drivers are eliminated for the first race, and so on, the final winner is chosen in a top-four battle.

However, while these drivers battle for the Cup Series championship, the entire field takes part in the races as well, and there is a high chance that an error made by a driver who is not in the championship battle can affect the ones who are battling for it. Denny Hamlin, discussing the issue with Frank Fleming on his YouTube channel, said:

"The reason I don't love it (championship format) coming down to one race is that, racing is a sport where luck is involved and it's not you know. Luck is a very loose term that people use but when you're competing in a championship in any other sport it's one-on-one your team versus the other team. The difference in NASCAR is it's one against three but there's 33 other guys out there that can completely screw up your (race)."

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Denny Hamlin suggests new NASCAR championship format

Hamlin during the qualoifying of the GEICO 500 event in Talladega

Apart from criticizing the current format, Denny Hamlin also proposed a different NASCAR Championship format where multiple races are held to decide the final champion.

The 43-year-old mentioned that the drivers contending for the championship should have separate and multiple races at different circuits, which might as well include a road course. This, he feels, would be a better and fairer way of deciding the final Cup Series champion.

"Why don't we have a championship round challenge these drivers at multiple different race tracks. I mean, I don't care if you put a road course in the championship round, at least you're crowning a champion off a larger sample size."

NASCAR has used the Playoffs system since the 2004 season. While it was limited to the Cup Series, the Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series also started to follow this system in 2016.