Denny Hamlin Wins in a Wild Finish at Richmond

A lot of things can change in an instant in racing, and Sunday Night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond was no exception. Martin Truex Jr seemed to have had the win in the bag came out until a caution came out with two laps to go, after Bubba Wallace turned the No. 5 of Kyle Larson. 

This would then lead to the leaders pitting under caution, where Denny Hamlin would come out first. This would lead Hamlin to his second win of the season and the 53^rd of his career, holding off Joey Logano and Kyle Larson. 

“This was a team win for sure,” said Hamlin. “Each one of these pit crew members just did an amazing job. They’ve been killing it all year.”

“Such a great feeling when you can come in and have a pit crew like that.”

However, there were some frustrations and controversies, as there were plenty of debates that Hamlin had jumped the final restart. Martin Truex Jr had led for 228 of the 407 laps in the race, including 54 consecutive laps that led up to that final caution. Unable to beat his teammate (Hamlin) off pit road, he would fall back to a fourth-place finish.

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s happened a few times over the years,” Truex said. “We were in a great spot and had a great Auto Owners Camry all night long and the guys did a really good job. Just got beat out of the pits and then he [Hamlin] jumped the start and just used me up in Turn 1.”

“Definitely sucks. Another car capable of winning. We’ll just have to come back next week and try to get one.”

Truex had heavy contact with Kyle Larson in the final two laps of the race and despite the late spin, Larson was able to quickly recover to a third-place finish. 

“My pit crew did a really good job to get us off pit road and get us those spots to restart fourth and gain one more,” Larson said. “I’ll take third after what could have been a lot worse there on the front stretch. Proud of the HendrickCars.com team.”

Regarding the late race scuffle with Martin Truex Jr, Larson said: “I think he was just mad. He was mad the 11 [Hamlin] used him up on the restart and that’s probably where it really started from.”

“I think he was more mad at Denny, but I was the closest one for him to take his anger out on,” Larson added with a smile.

Larson’s teammate, Chase Elliott, would finish fifth, while Christopher Bell, William Byron, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, and Tyler Reddick would finish out the top ten. 

For the first 30 laps of the race, NASCAR went with using wet-weather tires after it had rained leading up to the start of the 400-mile race. They ran the tires until a competition caution on lap 30 and it ran rather successfully for the first time in a points-paying event. 

Discussing the Finish 

As Truex claimed, many fans questioned whether Denny Hamlin had jumped the restart during overtime. NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday that “There was no doubt he rolled early.” 

“It’s a bang-bang call,” Sawyer said. “And as I had the opportunity to look Sunday night as well as multiple times yesterday — first and foremost, the 11 [Hamlin] is the control vehicle. They have earned the right to be in that position. They’ve won the battle off pit road and put themselves in a position to be able to control the restart. And as I looked at it yesterday, again multiple times, there’s no doubt he rolled early.”

It is a difficult decision to make when you have mere seconds to determine the outcome. Especially when it can affect the ending of a race. Sawyer explained how this was a “bang-bang call” and it isn’t as easy as other sports where a timeout can be called, or they can stop play to review something. 

“If this happens at Lap 10 or 50 or 300, the call could have been different,” Sawyer added. “If I’m a competitor, I wouldn’t be playing that game every week. Sometimes you get the call that goes in your favor.”

Adding salt to the wound, Hamlin went on his “Actions Detrimental” Podcast and even said that he rolled early. 

“I went pretty early in the zone,” Hamlin said on Tuesday. “It’s a restart zone. Certainly, if you fire in a zone that they know you’re going to fire in, let’s not even say zone — in a spot — if they know you’re going to fire in a spot, they can actually fire before you. I concede that on TV, it looks worse than what it felt like in the car. Now, a lot of the reason of that is that when I’m restarting the race, I’m not looking at the flagman, I’m not looking at my dash, I’m not looking at anything. All I’m looking at is my mirror and my side peripheral.”

Hamlin would then take to X later on Tuesday night, asking fans if they were tired of talking about the same thing for 48 hours. He stated on that same post that his team won the race because of the pit crew. Not the restart. He also expressed to “Get over it.”  

Despite the wild finish, it was a good, classic Richmond race of long green flag runs and pit strategies. The NASCAR Cup Series heads to another short track, that being Martinsville Speedway, next Sunday, April 7^th at 3 pm EST.