DOVER, Del. – Denny Hamlin had to work for it, but the Virginia native finally conquered Dover Int’l Speedway on Saturday afternoon.
Hamlin ran down his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. in traffic in the final stages of the race to earn his sixth NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season to continue the best season of his career.
The victory at The Monster Mile came in his 29th start at the concrete oval. His previous best finish was second, which came during the 2018 season.
“People always ask what your least favorite track is and I say Dover just because I’m not that good. I love the track, I just haven’t been very good here,” Hamlin said after his 43rd Cup Series victory. “We just have unbelievable cars right now. It seems like we’re coming to the race track prepared. I’m putting the work in and we’re getting results out of it.”
Hamlin dominated the first two stages of the Drydene 311, but he found himself having to play catchup during the final stage of the race after he lost the lead to Truex during pit stops at the conclusion of stage two.
Truex was able to hold the lead when the race resumed on lap 193, with Hamlin actually dropping to fourth behind another Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, reigning series champion Kyle Busch, and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski
“We fell back to fourth on that restart and he (Truex) was able to stretch it while I was trying to get around the 2 (Keselowski) and the 18 (Busch),” Hamlin said. “We were better. We just took that whole last stage to get back to him.”
Hamlin spent more than 50 laps trying to get back to the runner-up spot before moving around Busch for second on lap 245. A cycle of green flag pit stops started shortly thereafter, with Truex cycling back into the lead with Hamlin still in pursuit with approximately 30 laps remaining.
Truex held about a second advantage on Hamlin once the pit stop cycle was complete, but the leaders found themselves working through slower traffic in the closing laps. That would turn out to be Truex’s downfall.
Battling a loose race car, Truex came up on the No. 10 of Aric Almirola, who was already one lap down. Truex spent several laps trying to find a way by Almirola, but Almirola made it difficult for Truex to find a way around him.
With Almirola slowing Truex down, Hamlin was able to make up ground on Truex and challenge him for the race lead. With 10 laps left Truex got loose in turns three and four, allowing Hamlin to get a big run on the race leader at the exit of turn four.
Entering turn one Hamlin darted to Truex’s inside and the two raced side-by-side for the lead through turns one and two. Hamlin, on the preferred bottom lane, emerged onto the backstretch clear of Truex in the race lead.
That proved to be the winning move for Hamlin, who pulled away to a 1.179-second victory.
“We just kept pushing and pushing until we got there,” Hamlin said in reference to his run back to the lead. “I was confident seeing that in the long run it looked like our car was the best.”
Truex was left frustrated with Almirola, but admitted that he felt like he nearly stole a victory on Saturday afternoon.
“I really struggled once I got to the 10 car (Almirola),” Truex said. “He was running exactly where I wanted to run. Every time I tried to move up he’d just move up in front of me. He was really making it tough and obviously the 11 came out of nowhere at the end.
“I thought his car was in general better than ours all day. We were kind of struggling there. I was surprised we were able to hold the lead as long as we did really.”
Busch ended up third to give Joe Gibbs Racing a sweep of the top-three positions. Kevin Harvick was fourth, with Chase Elliott completing the top-five.
Saturday’s race is the first of two for the NASCAR Cup Series at Dover Int’l Speedway this weekend. The series will be back on track Sunday afternoon, with the lineup for that event set by inverting the top-20 finishers from Saturday’s race.
As a result of the invert, Matt DiBenedetto and Ryan Newman will share the front row for Sunday’s race.
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