Denny Hamlin gets his third win of 2019 at Pocono
It was a little more dramatic than Denny Hamlin was anticipating.
Hamlin was hoping to cruise to the end of Sunday’s race at Pocono. But the field had other ideas. Two cautions inside of the final scheduled 10 laps of the race meant Hamlin had to hold teammates Erik Jones and Martin Truex Jr. off on restarts to get his third victory of the season.
Hamlin passed both Jones and Truex with 20 laps to go after he was running third. He pulled away from his teammates and looked certain to cruise to victory. If not for those pesky cautions. Those made him wonder if he had enough gas.
“I was in fuel-save mode and still trying to get around those guys,” Hamlin said after the race. “Once I got around them then I really went into conservation mode instead of stretching the lead out.”
The first came with fewer than eight laps to go when Josh Bilicki’s car stopped on the back stretch. The next came on the ensuing restart when Kurt Busch hit the wall off turn 1 and then got sideways and collected Michael McDowell.
That second caution set up a two-lap shootout for the win. And Hamlin wasn’t seriously challenged.
He’s flown under the radar relative to his JGR teammates Kyle Busch and Truex who have each won four races this season. But Hamlin has been a top-10 driver in the points standings and is only playing third fiddle because of his teammates’ success.
Hamlin started the season with a Daytona 500 win and got his second win of the season at Texas. Sunday’s win is his 13th top-10 finish of the season, which puts him in a tie for third in the series behind Joey Logano and Busch.
Sunday’s race also included traction compound in the secondary and tertiary grooves at Pocono. Hamlin said that sticky stuff was the key to his race-winning pass. It was added for this race after Busch won a snoozer earlier this year.
“Thank Pocono for the PJ1. Obviously it could be hedged a little bit lower but they at least gave us a second lane to race in that we hadn’t had before,” Hamlin said.
Full results
1. Denny Hamlin
2. Erik Jones
3. Martin Truex Jr.
4. William Byron
5. Kyle Larson
6. Kevin Harvick
7. Daniel Hemric
8. Brad Keselowski
9. Kyle Busch
10. Ryan Blaney
11. Clint Bowyer
12. Aric Almirola
13. Joey Logano
14. Ryan Newman
15. Jimmie Johnson
16. Chris Buescher
17. Matt DiBenedetto
18. Paul Menard
19. Austin Dillon
20. Alex Bowman
21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
22. Bubba Wallace
23. Matt Tiffty
24. Daniel Suarez
25. Michael McDowell
26. Corey LaJoie
27. Kurt Busch
28. Landon Cassill
29. Ty Dillon
30. Ross Chastain
31. Quin Houff
32. Reed Sorenson
33. BJ McLeod
34. Austin Theriault
35. Josh Bilicki
36. David Ragan
37. Ryan Preece
38. Chase Elliott
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports
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