"Did you see Ryan Blaney coming last year?": Denny Hamlin deems Christopher Bell championship talk premature

Denny Hamlin recently spoke about Christopher Bell's chances of making it to and then going all the way at Phoenix this year. Bell, who won his third race of the season at New Hampshire, has jumped to second place in terms of playoff points.

During the latest episode of Actions Detrimental, Hamlin's co-host, Jared Allen, asked the #11 driver whether his teammate is now a championship favorite.

Hamlin inititally found the question to be ridiculous and premature considering the regular season is still going on. He responded by noting the way Ryan Blaney's charge to the Championship shaped up last season.

"Oh God, here we go again. Why is that always the reaction? We're such a long way from Phoenix... I said at the beginning, he's very good at these tracks, he's very good at Phoenix, he's obviously won there earlier, he's proven now on these 3/4th mile, one mile tracks, especially the flat ones that he's got something working very well. So, 'Yes,' (is) the answer to your question," Hamlin said. [42:30]

"I just hate the 'let's overreact Monday.' I just feel as though, let's talk about championship favorites once we get into the playoffs. Who knows? Did you see Ryan Blaney coming last year? No. At this point last season we were talking about no finish better than 9th over like a 15-week span," he added.

Hearing Hamlin's response, Allen rephrased his initial question of Christopher Bell being a championship favorite to Bell being a favorite 'to get to Phoenix.' Denny Hamlin replied that knowing Bell has second most playoff points, he will be "one of the four favorites to get to Phoenix."

---

Denny Hamlin claims Bell is a favorite to reach Phoenix, but points to the "wild card" aspect of the 2024 playoffs

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver pointed to Bell being "very good" at a variety of racetracks. He claimed Bell needs to just keep doing what he's doing and that then he'll go through the process of playoffs.

Having said that, Denny Hamlin mentioned that the playoffs this year could turn out to be tricky for Christopher Bell.

"The playoffs are a little bit more sketchy this year with first round having tracks like Atlanta, and some other things. I think we got two superspeedways in playoffs this year, two road courses, you don't really worry about C-Bell on road courses but you just never really know what can happen," Hamlin said. [44:35]

Denny Hamlin claimed that this year could see "a more unexpected final 4" than the previous season because of "all the wild car tracks" in the playoffs.