Denny Hamlin explains what Kyle Busch needs to do to improve after another disappointing day at Pocono

There’s not much if anything going right for Kyle Busch this season, and that continued in Sunday’s Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway.

Busch posted his fifth DNF in the last seven races and now finds himself 98 points back of Chris Buescher for the 16th and final spot in the Cup Series playoffs. It’s unchartered territory for Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion and first ballot Hall of Famer when he decides to call it a career.

Denny Hamlin, Busch’s longtime teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, said on Monday’s “ Actions Detrimental ” podcast that Busch just needs to focus on getting competitive again. Racing inside the top-10, Hamlin said, would go a long way in helping him get out of his current funk.

“You just try to get something going,” Hamlin said. “You try to get a top-10, you know what I mean? Just something, some kind of solid finish that gets you like back to being competitive. I think that’s the tough part about all this is he for the better part of his career was the guy. The best driver on the racetrack. And now, week in and week out we just don’t hear from him that much. There’s plenty of reasons why that is. They had some mechanical failures before practice and then before the race, all kinds of stuff going on that’s not normal, and I don’t know. You haven’t seen a sustained bad run like this from an elite Hall of Famer in quite some time.”

Pocono was an all-around disastrous weekend for Busch from the moment he got to the racetrack. First, it was steering issues during Saturday’s practice session. Then came moments before the race began, when his car started leaking oil on pit road. His team had to repair the issue in the garage, and he started the race from the rear of the field.

Busch once again struggled to find speed before his day came to a premature end on the Lap 120 restart. Corey LaJoie hooked Busch heading into Turn 1 . Busch blocked LaJoie from the bottom, who then retaliated. Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet shot up the racetrack and took out multiple cars.

Denny Hamlin: Kyle Busch winning a race this season ‘is not a legit possibility right now’

The reality facing Busch with just five regular season races remaining is that he’ll need to win to get into the postseason. Busch, however, is currently riding a career-long 42-race winless streak. Hamlin hasn’t seen anything that suggests a win is in Busch’s immediate future.

“What have you seen that makes you think he’s gonna win a race?” Hamlin said . “Can he win a race? Yes, absolutely. But not like legitimately. He’s not gonna win one legitimately and that’s just a fact. And I apologize to the Kyle Busch fans listening, but we have to be honest with ourselves. I’m not putting this on Kyle, trust me I’ve been teammates with him, the guy is elite. He’s great. But you gotta show that you can at least consistently run in the top-five to even have a chance to win. And we haven’t seen that lately.

“The speed hasn’t been there. Now can he win a race? Yes, Joey Logano won a race from 17th at Nashville. So, it is possible but you’re gonna need some crazy sh*t to happen. The odds are very, very low that you’re gonna win a race running 17th all day. You’re gonna need fuel mileage to be a factor. You’re just gonna need chaos at the end and trust me, NASCAR racing nowadays that’s half of what it is. There’s always a chance. But realistically as a Kyle Busch fan that I am, it’s just not a legit possibility right now from what I’ve seen. I just don’t see them showing up one weekend and then all of a sudden being the fastest car on the racetrack.”

The post Denny Hamlin explains what Kyle Busch needs to do to improve after another disappointing day at Pocono appeared first on On3 .