Heartbreak for some, elation for one. That was the story of Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
While Carson Hocevar suffered a cut left rear tire while leading on Lap 181, and William Byron ran out of fuel coming to the white flag, Denny Hamlin had no such issues as he had enough Sunoco fuel coursing through the fuel lines of his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE to make it to the finish.
RESULTS: FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan
This allowed Hamlin to capture his third victory of the season, and with the victory on Sunday, Hamlin moves to 57 career victories in the NASCAR Cup Series, which puts him within three wins of Kevin Harvick for the 10th position on the NASCAR Cup Series all-time win list.
After collecting the checkered flag, Hamlin said he wasn’t worried about running out of fuel, despite running Byron hard for the lead for several laps before making the race-winning pass with four laps to go.
“No, not really,” Hamlin said when asked if he was worried about his fuel level. “I wanted to get the lead. Obviously [Byron] was doing a great job defending.”
Here is a replay of the pass that sealed the win for Hamlin:
The pass that sealed the deal. pic.twitter.com/XGeSNLLpVV
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 8, 2025
Ironically, Hamlin had seen chances at victory over the last couple of races foiled due to the No. 11 Toyota not having enough fuel pumped into it on pit road. This time around, the team had no issues, and it resulted in a victory.
“It’s fantastic. Chris Gayle, this whole team has done a great job. We’ve been so fast throughout the entire year. Just haven’t finished it for one reason or another,” Hamlin explained. “Feels good to come here to Michigan, where we’ve been so close over the years. To get a victory for Toyota, Yahoo, Sport Clips, Shady Rays, the Jordan brand, and everyone. This is such a gratifying day to restart 11th or 12th, something like that, and drive to the front.”
Another added bonus for Hamlin winning the race is that with two races left in the seeding for the in-season tournament, which begins at EchoPark Speedway later this month, he is currently the No. 1-seeded driver in the tournament. The driver with the best finish at Michigan, Mexico City, and Pocono will be the top-seeded driver in the 32-driver, $1 million contest.
If there are ties for best finishing position, the ties will be broken by the second and third-best finishes.
As Byron sputtered off Turn 4 and darted to pit road, coming to the white flag, that handed the runner-up spot to Chris Buescher, who had won Stage 1 of Sunday’s race. The driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse narrowly missed out on his second career win at Michigan International Speedway by 1.099 seconds.
However, the driver gained two valuable positions in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings, and now ranks 12th in the standings, and is 20 points above the Playoff cutline with 11 races remaining in the regular season.
Ty Gibbs picked up his 14th career top-five finish as he came home in the third position. For the 22-year-old, the third-place finish snapped a five-race streak of finishing outside of the top 10. While it was a much-needed good finish, Gibbs wishes his fuel situation had allowed him to press for the race win in the closing laps.
“Wish we could have got one. That was not the option with the fuel spot from where we were in,” Gibbs said. “Just very unfortunate.”
One spot behind Gibbs was Bubba Wallace, who came home in the fourth position. Wallace, who rode into last week’s race at Nashville Superspeedway on a three-race streak of finishing 33rd or worse, has now finished sixth and fourth in his last two races.
The solid back-to-back runs have stopped the bleeding for Wallace, who had dropped from seventh in the championship standings to 12th before last week’s race at Nashville. Wallace now ranks 10th in the standings.
Kyle Larson successfully navigated voltage issues inside of his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, which cropped up with around 60 laps to go, to finish fifth. The top-five finish coupled with a 28th-place finish for Byron allowed Larson to shave seven points off of Byron’s regular-season championship lead. Larson now sits 41 points behind the point leader heading into next weekend’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico City.
Ross Chastain, Zane Smith, Kyle Busch, Ryan Preece, and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top-10 finishers in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400.
The dramatic, nail-biting fuel-mileage finish was set up by a crash suffered by Todd Gilliland on Lap 146 of the 200-lap contest.
The yellow is out on Lap 146 as @ToddGilliland_ makes contact with the wall in Turn 2. pic.twitter.com/4HiTzxPzW8
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 8, 2025
This caution provided the field a chance to pit just outside of the fuel window (50 laps), which put everyone in a position to attempt to stretch out the fuel tank.
As the race drew to a close, Hocevar, who was leading the race, was in a position where he simply was not going to make it to the finish of the race on his fuel load as he had been burning more fuel than the rest of the leaders due to being the leader of the race.
However, once Hocevar cut a left rear tire with 19 laps to go, this handed the lead over to Stage 1 winner William Byron, who also was iffy on making it to the finish on fuel.
Trouble for the leader!@CarsonHocevar is forced to pit! pic.twitter.com/Metewd22di
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 8, 2025
Byron would lead the next 15 laps, but after immense pressure from Denny Hamlin, he lost the lead with four laps remaining. Byron would then run out of fuel with two laps remaining in the race, while Hamlin had just enough to get to the finish and perform a celebratory burnout after the race.
Byron would finish in 28th, the last car on the lead lap, while Hocevar would end the day in 29th, one lap down.
Sunday’s race featured seven cautions, five for on-track incidents. However, no on-track incident was as eye-opening as the crash suffered by Alex Bowman in a multi-car chain-reaction crash on Lap 67.
Bowman’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was clipped in the right rear by Cole Custer, who had been contacted by Austin Cindric. The contact sent Bowman’s car hard right into the outside wall. Bowman slammed head-on into the outside wall.
The red flag is out at @MISpeedway after this incident involving multiple cars.@Alex_Bowman exited the No. 48 under his own power. pic.twitter.com/hP4HV8rbKN
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 8, 2025
Fortunately, Bowman was able to walk away from what he called the hardest crash of his NASCAR career.
Bowman would finish 36th for the second consecutive race, and over his last nine starts, Bowman has registered seven finishes of 27th or worse. This rough stretch of results has caused Bowman to plummet from third in the championship standings to 13th.
The driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet sits just 13 points above the Playoff cutline after Sunday’s race at Michigan.
Next up for the NASCAR Cup Series is a trip to Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, where the series will contest the 100-lap Viva Mexico 250. That race is set for Sunday, June 15, and will be streamed live on Prime Video. The race broadcast will kick off at 3:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the radio broadcast of the race.
