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Kevin Harvick weighs in on Denny Hamlin-Rory McIlroy comparison

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones04/16/25brianjones_93
Denny Hamlin Rory McIlroy
Randy Sartin-Imagn Images//Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

Kevin Harvick shared his thoughts on Denny Hamlin being compared to Rory McIlroy, who won the Masters on Sunday. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick talked about how Hamlin needs to do what McIlroy did to be considered a true legend in NASCAR.

“No matter what [Hamlin] says, not winning a championship is worse than winning one,” Kevin Harvick said. “No matter how many races you win is the rest of that quote. Does Denny deserve a championship? Yes. Can he win a championship? Yes. Has it worked out? No, but to not have to answer that question, to not have to live in that world of not having won a championship, it would put him from great to elite.”

Denny Hamlin has won 56 Cup Series races, including three Daytona 500s. But the 44-year-old has yet to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship, finishing second in the standings in 2010 and placing in the top five multiple times in his career. In 2023, Hamlin was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers, so when he calls it a career, he will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. That would be great for Hamlin, but he would love to do it with a championship on his resume.

More on Denny Hamlin and Rory McIlroy

In November, Hamlin talked about missing an opportunity to compete for a title. “Yeah I mean at that point, I was pushing every lap as hard as I could,” Denny Hamlin explained. “I never took a lap off 100%. And for inside baseball, some drivers do take laps off. You know there’s times you get into long green flag runs, you’ve got no pressure in front, you can’t see the person behind you and you’re like, ‘Whew… let me just make a corner here and not white knuckle this thing around.’ I didn’t have any of those yesterday, I was trying for all I could. Trying to make lap time.”

When Rory McIlroy won the Masters on Sunday, he became the sixth golfer to win the Grand Slam. McIlory won the PGA Championship in 2012 and 2014, won the U.S. Open in 2011 and won The Open Championship in 2014. He has won 29 tournaments on the PGA Tour and 19 tournaments on the European Tour.