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Denny Hamlin Holds Off Kyle Larson To Win At Dover And Tie Lee Petty On Wins List

by Hunter Thomas April 28, 2024 0 comments

DOVER, Del. – Denny Hamlin held off a hard charging Kyle Larson to win the Würth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Hamlin took control of the race at the beginning of Stage 3, when he won a three-wide battle off pit road.  The driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Mavis Tire Toyota led all but 11 laps in the final stage. Larson took the lead over again in a late-race stop, but Hamlin quickly regained the lead, and the race was on to the finish.

“We came out on pit road with the lead,” Hamlin said. “At that point I can’t remember what happened after that. Oh, we led. We had another pit sequence under green. Kyle just beat me pretty bad coming to pit road. At that point he took back over the lead.”

In the closing laps, Larson closed in on Hamlin, and the two drivers began mimicking each other’s moves. Larson was right on Hamlin on the final lap but couldn’t make a move for the win. Hamlin held on to capture his third win of the season.

“I just felt like my car was so good on the short run that I wasn’t really worried about when we came out behind Kyle, even though there was only 60, 70 laps left,” Hamlin said. “That’s easy for me to say because I think he’s probably one of the best at defending his spot, but I just was confident in how fast my car was.”

Hamlin has now tied NASCAR Hall of Famer Lee Petty for 12^th on the all-time wins list. Sunday’s victory marked Hamlin’s 54^th NASCAR Cup Series victory.

“It’s fantastic,” Hamlin said. “I couldn’t hold Lee Petty’s helmet. I’ve been blessed with a great race team. This whole FedEx team, Mavis team, Sport Clips, everyone that supports this 11 car, they’re the ones that make it happen. I’m the lucky one that gets to drive it.”

The runner-up finish on Sunday was Larson’s fifth top-five of the season. After two finishes outside of the top-20 over the past two races at Texas and Talladega, Larson returned to the top of the leaderboard. At the end of the day, Hamlin had a better short run car and an aero advantage being the leader.

“His car was really good on the short runs,” Larson said. “I could pace it, get closer to him at the end of the runs. It’s so easy to air block. Not that he was doing anything dirty or anything like that. It’s so easy as the leader, especially at a place like this, to shut off the air on the guys behind you.

“I knew when I got within three car lengths, he was going to start moving around. I couldn’t really do anything. I was trying all sorts of different angles and speeds, all that. Nothing could generate enough speed to get close enough I guess to do anything. That was a bummer.”

Martin Truex Jr. finished third after having a very strong day after winning Stage 1 and leading 69 laps. Completing the top-five was polesitter, Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott. Noah Gragson finished sixth, followed by Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Daniel Hemric and Ty Gibbs.

There were 12 lead changes among nine drivers. Hamlin led a race high of 136 laps.

The caution flew on five occasions for 42 laps. The largest accident of the day occurred on Lap 330, when Bubba Wallace spun exiting Turn 2. As Wallace slid down the banking, he collected Christopher Bell, William Byron and more along the backstretch.

Larson missed out on the win, but he now leads the standings by 15 points over Truex.

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Kansas Speedway on Sunday, May 5 for the AdventHealth 400. Live coverage will broadcast on FS1 at 3 p.m.

Photo Credit: James Gilbert/Getty Images