Denny Hamlin predicts more surprises like Harrison Burton and Chase Briscoe in NASCAR playoffs

Following Chase Briscoe's win at Darlington, Denny Hamlin has shared his predictions on what could come in the coming races. Ahead of this season, NASCAR made a big change in the schedule by removing Daytona as the last race of the regular season and putting Darlington in its place.

As it turned out, the last two races of the regular season, Daytona and Darlington, produced two unexpected winners who both booked their spots in the playoffs. At Daytona, it was Harrison Burton, and more recently, it was Chase Briscoe at Darlington.

Because of these results, and because of the current playoff format that prioritizes winning over everything else, Hamlin suggested on the Actions Detrimental podcast that there could be more such storylines coming in the playoffs.

“It’s just Daytona or the superspeedway, Atlanta this weekend, definitely could see another surprise winner. It’s just a different type of racing. As a sport, we’ve just morphed into this direction," Hamlin said. [8:45]

It's worth mentioning that the first round of the playoffs consists of three very different types of racetracks. First up is Atlanta, a superspeedway, followed by Watkins Glen, a road course, and at the end is Bristol, a short track.

Hamlin added he didn't think that Briscoe's win simply down to luck.

"Tracks like Darlington, you’re not going to luck up and win. It’s just too much from the car, driver, pit crew, and all that. And the #14 team has all those pieces of the puzzle together," Hamlin said of Briscoe's win. [8:20]

The #11 driver remarked that SHR's #14 team has enough funding to be fast enough, have a good pit crew, and have all the right ingredients to win races.

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When Denny Hamlin shared his critique of the current NASCAR playoff system, gave suggestions

Earlier this year, Denny Hamlin shared his critique of the current playoff system. Hamlin said the reason he doesn't like the championship format coming down to one race at Phoenix, a race that decides the champion, is because of luck being a big factor.

He added that luck is "a very loose term" which is thrown around casually. But when one is competing at the highest level of a sport. it's a different story.

"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)," Hamlin said.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver also shared his take on what a potentially new and better championship format could look like. As per Hamlin, NASCAR should have a championship round challenge for the drivers at multiple racetracks.

That way, Hamlin argued, the champion would be crowned from a larger sample size as opposed to being the first of four drivers in one race.