UPDATE – 8:30 PM ET:
Denny Hamlin is the official winner of the Cook Out 400 after passing post-race inspection.
Erik Jones, driver of the No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE, has failed post-race inspection from 24th-place and has been demoted to last.
The dry spell for Denny Hamlin at Martinsville Speedway is finally over.
Hamlin, who had the half-mile paperclip in Martinsville, Virginia as one of his strongest racetracks on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit, snapped a decade-long streak of close-calls and shortfalls by winning Sunday’s Cook Out 400.
It’s the first victory of the season for the Chesterfield, Virginia-native, and his first win with brand-new sponsor Progressive Insurance, who joined his Joe Gibbs Racing team for the first time last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“You know, Chris Gayle, all the engineers, the pit crew, everybody really on that wall right there, just deciding they were going to come here with a different approach than what we’ve been over the last few years. It was just amazing. The car was great. It did everything I needed it to do. Just so happy to win with Chris, get 55.”
The performance was a dominant one for Hamlin, who led a race-high 274 of 400 laps en route to a commanding victory over teammate Christopher Bell, winning by 4.617 seconds – the largest Margin of Victory at Martinsville since November 2020.
RACE RESULTS: Cook Out 400 at Martinsville
“Yeah, I mean, he’s been such a soldier to come in here to this 11 team,” Hamlin added.
“Kind of learn our style. Over the last few weeks, just been putting his final touches on it. It’s really been a great mesh. Our relationship is getting better. Man, really happy to get a win with him. Obviously back here in Martinsville, where I spent so many years racing late models and what not. Gosh, I love winning here.”
Christopher Bell, the polesitter for Sunday’s event and a three-time winner on the season, helped Joe Gibbs Racing collect a sweep of the top two positions, coming up one spot short of another victory at Martinsville.
Bubba Wallace collected his second top-five result of the season with a third-place run at Martinsville Speedway. The result matches the best result for Wallace’s new crew chief, Charles Denike.
Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson completed the top five finishers from Sunday’s event. Elliott, driving the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, led the second-most laps on the afternoon, 42, and was a contender for Hamlin throughout the second stage.
Ross Chastain came home in sixth, while Ryan Preece, finishing seventh, earned his third straight top 10 finish in the NASCAR Cup Series – the first time Berlin, Connecticut has done that throughout his career at NASCAR’s top level.
Joey Logano rebounded from a late-race spin to finish in eighth place, marking the first top-10 of the year for the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion. Chase Briscoe and Todd Gilliland completed the top 10.
The event featured a total of 10 caution flags, which took up 86 laps, but the run to the finish was a longer one, coming in at 75 laps.
Of the 38 drivers to start Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Martinsville, only Austin Cindric failed to finish, with continuous battery issues for Team Penske teammates Cindric and Josh Berry causing the team to run out of backup batteries.
Leaving Martinsville, William Byron (despite a poor finish) maintains the NASCAR Cup Series points lead by 17 markers over Kyle Larson, with Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell, and Alex Bowman rounding out the top five.
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Darlington Raceway next weekend for NASCAR’s annual Throwback Weekend, with coverage of the event (on April 6) being on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio at 3:00 PM ET.
