After getting run down by Kyle Larson for the lead over the final laps, Denny Hamlin put on a defensive driving clinic Sunday to hang on and win the Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway by a quarter of a second, earning his third win of the season and the 54th of his career.
Hamlin prevailed in a three-wide battle off pit road following the end of stage 2, and then capitalized on clean air to lead much of the race the rest of the way. But the strength of Hamlin's car was the short run, which allowed Larson to close in and challenge him for the lead -- and eventually the win -- over the long run.
Wurth 400 unofficial results
- #11 - Denny Hamlin
- #5 - Kyle Larson
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #10 - Noah Gragson
- #12 - Ryan Blaney
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #31 - Daniel Hemric
- #54 - Ty Gibbs
"Kyle did a great job executing on the green flag pit cycle, and then we were able to get the lead there on that restart which allowed us, with a caution, to control the restart," Hamlin told Fox Sports. "That was a key moment for us. Man, it certainly feels good winning here at Dover."
Faced with the issue of having to thread his way through lapped traffic while trying to hold off Larson over the final 10 laps, Hamlin executed a key defensive tactic by changing his line to "air block" Larson, running in the same lane as Larson in order to affect the flow of clean air to his car and create more turbulence. That proved too much for Larson to overcome, as he was unable to make up the sort of time he had on Hamlin beyond the high side of the racetrack.
"His car was really good on the short runs. I could pace it and get closer to him at the end of the runs, but it's just so easy to air block -- not that he was doing anything dirty or anything like that -- it's just so easy as the leader, especially at a place like this, to just shut off the air on the guys behind you," Larson told Fox Sports. "I knew when I got within three carlengths he was gonna start moving around. And I just couldn't really do anything.
"I was trying all sorts of different angles and speeds and all that, and nothing could generate enough speed to get close enough, I guess, to do anything. So that was a bummer."
With his 54th career victory, Hamlin has now moved into a tie with NASCAR Hall of Famer Lee Petty for 12th on NASCAR's all-time wins list. His next win will move him into a tie for 11th with Rusty Wallace (55 wins), and then another five wins will tie him with Kevin Harvick (60) and put him in position to enter the list's top 10.
"It's just fantastic. I mean, I couldn't hold Lee Petty's helmet," Hamlin said of tying the three-time Cup champion and first Daytona 500 winner's mark. "But I've been blessed with a great race team ... Everyone that supports this 11 car, they're the ones that make it happen. I'm just the lucky one that gets to drive it."
Hanging with the squirrels
Arguably the most decisive point of the race came during what turned out to be the final cycle of green flag pit stops, where an ill-timed caution wound up altering the race to the detriment of some and the benefit of others. Shortly after Larson had taken what would have been the race lead from Hamlin off pit road, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. collided with Josh Berry as he was trying to transition from the apron back to the racing surface, sending him spinning into the inside wall on the backstretch and bringing out the yellow flag.
The caution trapped many drivers who had been running inside the top 10 a lap down, forcing them to have to take the wave around to get back on the lead lap and start behind cars that had been running laps down on the ensuing restart with 72 laps to go.
As Bubba Wallace was trying to drive past the lapped car of Zane Smith, Smith's No. 71 hit Wallace's No. 23 in the left rear, sending him spinning down the track and into the path of both Christopher Bell and William Byron, taking all three of them out of the race. That occurred just as Hamlin was able to use his launch on the restart to take the top spot from Larson.
The crash was a frustrating one for all three drivers involved: Byron wound up with his first DNF of the season, Christopher Bell's season continues to be a total rollercoaster with now three DNFs and five finishes of 33rd or worse counteracting his win at Phoenix, and Bubba Wallace was left with a second-straight DNF after crashing out at Talladega. Wallace mostly held his tongue on what he thought of the contact with Smith, but did invoke an old racing expression that when you run with the squirrels you'll get your nuts cracked.
"We'll just go on to Kansas where hopefully we're not around any squirrels and we'll go kick their ass," Wallace told Fox Sports.
While the caution for Stenhouse was a turn for the worse for that trio of drivers, it turned into a terrific opportunity for Daniel Hemric -- who was the leader at the time of the caution -- as well as Noah Gragson. Those two would both gain track position by virtue of being among the few cars on the lead lap, and both kept that track position and used it to get solid finishes.
Gragson would wind up finishing sixth, while Hemric came home ninth for the second week in a row. For both drivers, it marked the first time in their Cup careers that they have earned back-to-back top 10 finishes.
First time Heim time
Sunday marked a major milestone in the career of young Corey Heim, as the 21-year old from Marietta, Georgia, and star of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series made his Cup debut driving the Legacy Motor Club No. 43, subbing for the injured Erik Jones (back). Heim had a respectable and trouble-free day -- save for one glitch where he got turned into his pit box by Tyler Reddick -- finishing 25th.
That came despite the curveball of a crew chief change overnight, as Dave Elenz had to return home to North Carolina to attend to a family matter. Joey Cohen, the team vice president of race operations, served as interim crew chief in Elenz's place.
"In the beginning to middle of the race, I thought we had a ton of speed. We got kind of messed up on the cycle there when the leaders pitted. I pit a lap later and the caution came out right away, which pinned us an extra lap down," Heim said after the race. "And we were beating out the guys that finished like 15th through 20th all day. So I feel like that's kind of where we were supposed to end up, but that's part of racing and I'm super thankful for Legacy Motor Club for putting me in this week and believing in me.
"I definitely should've been probably six or seven spots better, but it just didn't work out that way."
As for Jones -- who accompanied his team to Dover -- he told Fox Sports prior to the race that his goal was to be ready to return to the driver's seat by Darlington, while also leaving open the possibility of returning next weekend at Kansas. For Jones, his absence from Sunday's race ended a streak of 262 consecutive Cup starts dating back to the 2017 Daytona 500 at the start of his rookie year.
Race results rundown
- Kyle Busch described his race as a "normal day," something he lamented he has not had often in what had been a rough start to 2024 entering this year. After starting from the pole and leading 34 laps, Busch's fourth place finish marked just his second top five of the year and his first since he ran third at Atlanta in February.
- In addition to Hemric, A.J. Allmendinger also had a strong day in 13th, putting both Kaulig Racing cars in the top 15. It also marks the third week in a row that a Kaulig car has finished in the top 15, a welcome development after the team had been noticeably off in terms of performance in March.
- Very quietly, Austin Cindric had one of his best runs of the entire season in 15th. It was his second-best finish of the entire season, and it was his first finish inside the top 15 since he ran a season-best fourth at Atlanta.
- Corey LaJoie made things interesting during a cycle of green flag pit stops in the first half of the race, choosing to run long and lead the race well after the rest of the field opted to come to pit road. The strategy allowed LaJoie to lead 33 laps, the second-most he's ever led in a Cup race, but it came at the cost of time on-track and he would wind up finishing 21st.
- Seven-time Cup champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson showed some glimpses of his old form early in the weekend, as he had posted the fifth-fastest speed in practice in his first race back at one of his most successful racetracks since 2020. However, Johnson did not exhibit the same speed in qualifying or on raceday, and he would finish five laps down in 28th.
- After a hard crash in practice on Saturday that forced him to a backup car, an uneventful Sunday was probably the best thing Kaz Grala and his No. 15 team could've asked for. Grala stayed out of trouble all race long and finished 29th.
- The first 50 or so laps of Sunday's race were a miserable experience for Ryan Preece, as a fire in the door foam of his car caused a considerable and consistent amount of smoke in his cockpit. The smoke eventually became too much for Preece to bear, and he would end up bringing his car to the garage and parking it for the day. The ordeal left Preece with his first DNF since his spetacular flip last August at Daytona.
Next race
The NASCAR Cup Series is off to Kansas Speedway for the AdventHealth 400 next Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.
