Hamlin’s aggressive pass pays off with Pocono win

Denny Hamlin got his second win of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday at Pocono.

Hamlin made the winning pass on a restart with less than 10 laps to go when he dove to the inside of leader Kyle Larson as the two barreled through Turn 1. Larson hit the wall on the exit of the corner as Hamlin completed the pass into Turn 2 before Justin Haley crashed to bring out another caution.

Shortly after the caution flag flew, Larson drove into Hamlin’s door on the frontstretch to show his displeasure with the way that Hamlin raced him.

Hamlin then easily held onto the lead with three laps to go on the final restart and was out in front of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. when the caution flag flew on the final lap for Ryan Preece’s stalled car. Preece spun on the penultimate lap but NASCAR held the caution. He was unable to get going between Turns 2 and 3 before the leaders approached on the last lap.

Hamlin was loudly booed by many of the fans in attendance after he climbed from his car and he defended his pass of Larson amidst the noise.

“There was a lane,” Hamlin said in his victory interview. “He missed the corner first and evidently he didn’t have his right-side tires clean and when he gassed it up he kept going again. You have an option in those positions to either hold it wide open and hit the fence or lift and race it out. But those are choices they made. I didn’t hit either one of them.”

Hamlin was using a plural noun because the caution that set up his winning restart pass came from Alex Bowman’s crash. Bowman went spinning in Turn 3 from third place ahead of Hamlin and while Hamlin was close to Bowman’s bumper before the No. 48 car went around, it didn’t appear via replay that Hamlin touched Bowman’s car.

The win is the 50th of Hamlin’s career and his seventh at Pocono. The 2.5-mile triangular track is his best track as he’s finished in the top 10 in 22 of his 34 starts there.

Kyle Larson: ‘I am pissed’

Larson ended up finishing 21st after he fell through the field in the closing laps — likely because of the damage to his car. As you can imagine, he was not thrilled with his friend Hamlin.

“I’ve been cost a lot of good finishes by him throughout my career and I know he says I race a certain way but I don’t think I’ve ever had to apologize to him about anything,” Larson said. “So, not that I’m sure he’s going to say sorry after this, but it is what it is. Whatever, just move on.”

Larson then expounded on how the incident on the track affected the relationship between the too.

“Yes, this makes things s***** and awkward, whatever,” Larson said. “He’s always right. All the buddies know, Denny’s always right. I’m sure he was in the right there as well. It is what it is. I’m not going to let it tarnish a friendship on track, but I am pissed. And I feel like I should be pissed.”