Denny Hamlin has admitted his NASCAR championship hopes are now hanging by a thread after a frustrating afternoon at Martinsville left him further behind Kyle Larson in the standings.

Hamlin faces an uphill battle to keep his title ambitions alive heading into the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The NASCAR veteran offered a particularly bleak assessment of his chances after Sunday's race. "We'll go there and do the dog-and-pony show and weep and act like we can do it," Hamlin said. "We just didn't capitalize. It's not a Chase we capitalized on, and we certainly did not execute to our best ability."

Hamlin entered Martinsville 73 points behind Larson and knew he needed a strong result to close the gap. Starting from the pole offered an ideal opportunity to make up ground, but a costly strategy call from crew chief Chris Gayle left him struggling for pace during the opening stage.

Gayle opted to keep Hamlin on the same tires for all 130 laps of Stage 1, leaving the No. 11 Toyota at a disadvantage against rivals running on fresher rubber. Hamlin dropped through the field and finished the stage in 17th, missing out on valuable points. A poorly timed caution then forced him to restart Stage 2 at the back of the pack.

His afternoon became more difficult after a mid-race spin and damage to his left-rear bumper following contact withJoey Logano. Hamlin fought his way back to sixth, but the recovery did little to change his championship position. He collected 31 points compared to Larson's 28, but still lost ground in the standings. Hamlin dropped to third, 70 points behind Larson, while teammate Christopher Bell moved into second, three points ahead of him.

"I saw everyone pitting, and I was waiting for the call," Hamlin said about the strategy in Martinsville. "I thought he was just waiting late, maybe running long. But then, with about 40 laps left in the stage, I realized we were going to go the whole way. At that point, we'd made our bed, and it was just a dirty, old, stinky bed that nobody wanted to be in."

His attention now turns to Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he faces a near-impossible task to overhaul Larson. Under NASCAR's cumulative Chase format, there will be no points reset for the season finale, leaving Larson needing just nine points to secure the championship, regardless of Hamlin or Bell's results.

It has been a frustrating Chase campaign for the 45-year-old, with costly mistakes and misfortune repeatedly damaging his title challenge. Hamlin's problems began at the opening race in Darlington, where he had the fastest car and led 68 laps before a slow pit stop in Stage 2 dropped him into traffic. He subsequently made contact with Michael McDowell and hit the wall, costing him valuable points.

A pit road incident at Charlotte created further problems. A JGR crew member stumbled, sending a loose tire out of Hamlin's pit box and into a rival's stall. The resulting penalty cost him more points, while his struggles continued at Phoenix.

Hamlin was running comfortably inside the top five on Lap 221 when a right-rear tire failure forced him to pit. With his brakes compromised, he struggled to slow the car and was penalized for speeding on pit road.

The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran has since acknowledged that his championship chances are now "unrealistic". A driver can score a maximum of 76 points in a single race weekend by winning both stages and the race. However, with Larson guaranteed at least one point for taking the green flag, Hamlin can make up no more than 75 points at Homestead.