Hamlin goes back to back with Michigan Cup win

Denny Hamlin did it again Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, going from the back to the front for his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series victory.

And it was his second straight win at Michigan.

Hamlin took a run off Turn 4 to make it three wide with Spire Motorsports teammates Daniel Suarez and Carson Hocevar to grab the lead. It was all he needed with 38 laps to go, as Hamlin then drove away for his third win of the season.

“This Joe Gibbs team just keeps giving me amazing race cars,” Hamlin said. “This National Debt Toyota was just amazing. The last run there, it was hammer down. I had a few good restarts, and then once we got the lead, I was going to lay it out with all I had.”

The margin of victory between Hamlin and Erik Jones was 11.1 seconds. Jones had a strong long-run car throughout the afternoon and made a charge in the final laps to the runner-up position.

Hamlin had to come from the rear of the field because his team needed to repair the underbody of his Toyota. A flat left rear tire during practice caused the damage. Last weekend, Hamlin won at Nashville Superspeedway after being penalized for jumping the initial start from the pole.

The victory was the 63rd of Hamlin’s career. It tied him with former teammate Kyle Busch for eighth on the all-time wins list. Hamlin celebrated post-race with a flag that had the No. 18 on it and Kyle Busch’s signature.

Bubba Wallace finished third, Kyle Larson fourth, and Hocevar finished fifth. Suarez faded to a sixth-place finish, Joey Logano finished seventh, Ryan Blaney finished eighth, Chris Buescher finished ninth, and Chase Briscoe completed the top 10.

The run to the finish was 39 laps off the final caution. It flew with 46 laps to go for a multicar crash when Michael McDowell got into Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to start the incident.

The stages were won by Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott.

Reddick did not finish the race after being collected in a lap 83 crash. Elliott was also involved in a crash and did not finish the race.

The biggest incident of the afternoon, in fact, occurred between Elliott and Christopher Bell on lap 148. Elliott got loose underneath Bell in Turn 3 and bounced off the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. The contact sent Bell hard into the outside wall, with Elliott following.

Both drivers climbed from their cars under their own power. Elliott took the blame after being released from the care center.

Bell was evaluated and released from the infield care center, but did not speak to the media.

NASCAR had to red-flag the race for wall repair.

“I’m fine,” Elliott said. “It was totally my fault. I feel really bad for Bell and just taking him out. I was just trying to run in the bottom and kind of make use of our fresh tires and try and at least get to second, I was hoping. Or, hopefully, even stay side by side with him. But I got in there and got free and thought I was going to spin, and was kind of committing to spinning out, and as soon as I started to commit to spinning, it just hooked up and hooked a right and unfortunately sent Christopher into the wall super hard and me shortly there behind.

"Just racing really hard; I feel like that was kind of a turning point in the race. We needed to make something happen and stepped over the line again and paid for it.”

Elliott and Bell were among the nine cautions that flew for on-track incidents. There were 13 drivers who did not finish the race.

In all, there were 11 cautions and 22 lead changes among 11 drivers.

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