Denny Hamlin led the final 13 laps to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Pocono Raceway, successfully saving enough fuel to beat Kyle Busch and claim his third wins of the season.
The victory is Hamlin’s seventh at Pocono, breaking a tie with Jeff Gordon for the most all-time at the “Tricky Triangle.”
Hamlin’s win came after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was involved in multiple incidents throughout the 400-mile race, starting from the first lap.
Starting from the pole, Hamlin got loose exiting Turn 1 and bounced off the outside wall. Later on a Lap 11 restart, Hamlin’s left-side tires dipped below the yellow line in Turn 2 and his No. 11 Toyota went for a spin to bring out the caution.
Finally, on a restart with 18 laps to go, Hamlin restarted second on the inside of Ross Chastain. In the latest chapter of their feud, Hamlin appeared to run Chastain up towards the wall. Chastain’s No. 1 car bounced off the wall, then careened into the No. 4 of Kevin Harvick and ending Chastain’s day.
“I think that’s something that’s been owed to me for a few months now,” Chastain told NBC Sports.
Hamlin had been as close as two laps short on fuel prior to the caution that created that restart.
Now, Hamlin has three wins on the season, tied with Chase Elliott who finished third.
“It’s the team, they were able to come back with a great strategy there to get us back up front for the mistake I made,” Hamlin told NBC Sports on the frontstretch as a mixture of cheers and boos rained from the grandstands. It was noted by NBC Sports’ Marty Snider, who asked if his contact with Chastain was payback.
“What did you want me to do?” Hamlin said. “What did you expect me to do? We got position on him and he just ran out of race track. … We’re just going to keep racing hard until we get the respect back from these guys. It’s not just that, we’ve been wrecked four times, twice while leading in the two months and I’m just at the end of it.”
Hamlin wound up leading 22 of 160 laps. Busch led a race-high 63 laps before he lost what would eventually be the lead to Chastain during green flag pit stops. Chastain leapfrogged him with a pit stop sequence of 36.5 seconds compared to Busch’s 38.1.
For Busch, it’s his seventh top five of the season.
“We were trending loose on that run there where (Chastain) was trailing me and keeping up with me,” Busch told NBC Sports. “Figured that was our hinderance, so we snugged it up a little bit and over did it and was way too tight that whole last run.
“When (Hamlin) and (Chastain) were out in front of us, I was falling back from those guys. So we were luck to get a couple of cautions there, lucky to keep pace.”
The top five was completed by Tyler Reddick and Daniel Suarez.
Completing the top 10 were Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Michael McDowell, Martin Truex Jr. and Bubba Wallace.
The only Toyota that didn’t finish in the top 10 was 23XI Racing’s No. 45, which was driven by NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Ty Gibbs.
The 19-year-old grandson of Joe Gibbs made his first career NASCAR Cup start in relief of Kurt Busch, who was ruled out due to concussion symptoms Sunday morning after his hard wreck in qualifying Saturday afternoon.
Check back for more.
Keyword: Denny Hamlin Wins From Pole At Pocono