Denny Hamlin clearly had everybody’s number in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway, but with a strategy call that should probably result in a raise, Alan Gustafson made sure that Chase Elliott was the driver to break Hendrick Motorsports’ losing streak.
The Dawsonville, Georgia-native had been a top-10 contender throughout much of the afternoon at the iconic half-mile paperclip, but was nowhere near the raw speed or capabilities of Hamlin, who led a race-high 292 laps.
However, it was a conscious decision by Gustafson, a veteran NASCAR Cup Series crew chief, to split the stage into three equal pieces that gave Elliott a chance to fight for the victory, pitting at Lap 261 and being the beneficiary of a caution for debris at Lap 312.
That, coupled with a tough restart for Hamlin trying to maneuver his way around Ross Chastain, who had stayed on the racetrack with 22-lap-old tires, cost the Joe Gibbs Racing driver the lead at the start of the race’s final run, a position he was never able to regain.
While there were moments Hamlin appeared to be much quicker than Elliott in the long run, a combination of just enough pace, difficulty in making passes, and the positioning of traffic made it impossible for the No. 11 Bob’s Discount Furniture Toyota Camry XSE to take the lead.
RACE RESULTS: NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Martinsville
“It was definitely a team effort, that was awesome, man,” Elliott told FOX Sports’ Regan Smith after the race. “We’ve never had a win this early in the season, so just a great team effort. So proud of Alan [Gustafson] and the whole UniFirst team, they did a great job. We took a gamble; we were going to two-stop that last stage. I honestly think it was going to work out really well for us either way, but so proud of them.”
Elliott, who made his NASCAR Cup Series debut exactly 11 years ago, to the day, has never won this early into a season before; the earliest in the year he’s won was during the 2020 season (his championship season) when he won the eighth race of the year.
This one was a true team effort, though, with the victory being set up by Gustafson and spiked by Elliott, holding off the dominant car of the afternoon.
“Super happy that it paid off, we were just kind of trapped in like tenth spot,” Gustafson said. “It was really hard to pass, so we needed to do something different. Mathematically, it was going to be close for us to split that run or two-stop it; I just felt like it was worth a shot. When we pitted early, I think it brought a lot of guys down. When they pitted early, it put us in a better position. Obviously, the caution was great; it gave us track position, the rest is history.”
Denny Hamlin was lights-out all afternoon, winning both of the race’s first two stages. Unfortunately, losing Sunday’s event just came down to poor timing of the caution, as Elliott still had track position on the No. 11 at the time of the debris on-track from Ty Dillon’s No. 10 Chevrolet.
Joey Logano made a significant recovery from an abysmal performance last weekend at Darlington Raceway, finishing third in the No. 22 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. Ty Gibbs collected his fourth top-five in the last five races, finishing fourth, while last Fall’s Martinsville winner, William Byron, rounded out the top-five.
Ryan Blaney looked to be a contender to fight against Hamlin late in the going, but while battling the Joe Gibbs Racing driver got shoved, pretty significantly, into the outside wall in Turn 4. Blaney ultimately dropped to sixth.
Christopher Bell recovered from a subpar starting spot to finish seventh, while Austin Cindric collected back-to-back top-10 finishes for the first time since 2024, finishing in eighth. Kyle Larson and Josh Berry rounded out the top-10.
Shane Van Gisbergen ran inside the top-10 all afternoon, and was on a similar strategy to Chase Elliott in the final stage, but dropped back too many positions before the caution came out, making it more difficult to pull ahead of some of the main front-runners. Despite that, the No. 97 finished 11th, his fourth top-15 of the year on an oval.
Tyler Reddick wasn’t much of a factor throughout Sunday’s event, hovering between eighth and 15th based on how pit stops went, but continues to hold the points lead in the NASCAR Cup Series — with an 81-point advantage over Ryan Blaney. Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and William Byron round out the top-five.
After a late-race wreck with Carson Hocevar, which collected at least 10 cars, Bubba Wallace finished 36th on the afternoon and dropped from third to 11th in series point standings heading into the first of two off-weeks this season.
The NASCAR Cup Series will encounter its first of two off-weekends for Easter, before coming back strong in two weeks for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Coverage of that event will take place on Sunday, April 12 at 3:00 PM ET on FS1, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
