Kevin Harvick makes NASCAR Cup Series championship pick

Kevin Harvick has made his prediction on who will win the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship as the playoffs begin on Sunday. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick believes Denny Hamlin will win his first championship despite suffering a big penalty that dropped him in the playoff standings.

“I think when Denny looks at the way that they run this year, the way that they ran at Phoenix, he’s got to know he’s running out of shots,” Harvick said. “When he sees that regular-season trophy in the shop of 23XI, I just got to believe there’s some sort of motivation there.

“I think when he and [Chris] Gabehart look at all the things they have accomplished and been together and can do, I think that that experience of being able to have been there before, I just think that eventually it’s got to happen.”

Hamlin has been close to winning a title multiple times in his career. Since 2019, the 43-year-old has finished in the top five in the standings each year, including a third-place finish in 2021. His best finish was second in 2010, losing to Jimmie Johnson.

Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin want Championship round for NASCAR playoffs

In March, Hamlin spoke to Harvick about the championship race needing to take place at multiple tracks instead of just one. “It’d be nice to see — I’d like to see it rotate every — even if it was two tracks, and it just rotated every other year,” Harvick said.

“I’m a fan of a championship round, personally,” Hamlin stated. “I’m just — I’m more of a person that, I think one race is just too small of a sample size. I know that it’s, that’s the way it is, and that’s how they crown champions now. But if we have Round of 16, Round of 8, Round of 4 before, why don’t you have a Round of Championship? It’s simple.

“Break it down. A mile and a half, you can have — I don’t care, put a road course. Mile and a half, short track, whatever you want to do. But I think that the larger the sample size, the better — the better the results are going to be for the true champion.”