Although he had seven top-five finishes in the Chase for the Championship, including a victory in the season-ending Ford 400, Denny Hamlin wound up fifth in the point standings.
He talked about his victory and challenging for next year's championship. Here are excerpts of that interview:
Q: Does the victory make you realize how close you could have been to winning the championship?
A: It looks like the trend has been you get one bad race if you want to be a champion. The other second through 12th (finishers) have had multiple bad races. But each one of those races where we blew up, we were leading, and if we had just averaged seventh or eighth I think in those races, then we're out on the front stage celebrating right now.
Q: What would it take to beat Johnson?
A: It's tough to play the numbers games and what if. But all I know is we've been competitive enough to run with those guys, and we've come a long way as a race team.
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