On a beautiful day at Dover Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin held off a late-race charge by Kyle Larson to notch his third win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Here’s what we learned after the Wurth 400 at Dover.
Denny Hamlin once more gets the best of Kyle Larson
Hamlin is now 3-0 against Larson in 1-on-1 battles since the start of last season, besting the 2021 Cup Series champion at Kansas, Pocono and Dover since May of 2023.
While Larson may own the elusive championship that Hamlin is still chasing, keep an eye on these two drivers should they meet at the front again.
With Kansas coming up next weekend, plenty of fans will be thinking back to Hamlin’s controversial move on the final lap in 2023, where he put Larson in the wall on the backstretch before coasting to victory.
Larson is likely tired of being bested by Hamlin at this point, and Kansas may present us with another legendary battle between the two future Hall of Famers.
Chase Elliott is fully back to championship form
Make that four top-five finishes in the last five races for Chase Elliott, with the lone outlier being a 15th place run at Talladega last week.
After a pedestrian start to the season, the 2020 Cup Series champion has turned up the wick over the last month of the season, and his Texas win on April 14 has him more confident than he’s been in a long time.
It seems his second win of 2024 could be coming sooner rather than later.
Kyle Busch and the No. 8 team might be turning the corner
After winning the pole on Saturday, Kyle Busch followed up his stellar qualifying session with an equally impressive drive on Sunday, notching his second top-five of the season and moving up to 13th in the standings, 13 points above the playoff cutline.
One good run doesn’t solve the entirety of the No. 8 team’s problems, but if Busch can string together a solid month of May, the first race of June at Gateway – where Busch has an average finish of 1.5 in the Cup Series – could be the spot for a breakthrough win.
Hemric, Gragson follow up stellar day in ‘Dega with another in Dover
After getting much needed top-10 finishes at Talladega a week ago, both Noah Gragson and Daniel Hemric followed up their solid runs in the Alabama sun with a pair of top-10 finishes in Dover.
While Hemric’s ninth place finish was based more off of track position than pure speed, Gragson continues to show flashes of brilliance, moving up to 21st in the points with his fourth top-10 of the season.
Without a 35-point penalty incurred after Atlanta, he’d be 19th, just 45 points out of the playoffs. While Hemric is still mired in the weeds – he sits 25th in points, 97 outside the playoff bubble – momentum can do wonders for a struggling race team.
Don’t be surprised if Gragson and Hemric show up to Kansas with a little more pep in their step than usual.