In Sunday’s (May 7) AdventHealth 400, a race that saw a record set for the most lead changes in a 400-mile event on an intermediate track, Denny Hamlin claimed victory bypassing Kyle Larson for the win in the first last-lap pass in the history of Kansas Speedway. The win is Hamlin’s fourth at Kansas, but his first in the Cup Series since the Coca-Cola 600 last spring.
After a caution on lap 214, most of the field took their last set of fresh tires. Larson pulled away on the restart, but Hamlin stayed in the tracks of the California driver and made his move on the final lap. Hamlin’s No. 11 made contact with Larson causing him to hit the wall. Larson was able to hold on to finish second.
“So proud of this whole FedEx team.” Hamlin said to FOX Sports from the start/finish line. “I got position on him there and I was trying to side draft him, clipped his left rear there. Glad he was able to at least finish.”
William Byron came back from two laps down to finish third, Bubba Wallace ran fourth and Ross Chastain ended the day fifth. Joey Logano won stage two en route to a sixth-place result and Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10.
After the race, Noah Gragson confronted Chastain after an on-track issue in the middle stages. Officials had to separate the two drivers after Gragson grabbed Chastain’s firesuit and Chastain threw a punch. The fallout even interrupted runner-up Larson’s post-race interview.
“Obviously he was side-drafting really aggressively, like he would…” said Larson, before he was distracted by two fellow Chevrolet drivers throwing hands. “He was … touching me, it felt like, it just had me kind of out of control.”
Then his attention was drawn to the monitor: “I wish we could see what’s going on here, I guess.”
Hendrick Motorsports teammates Byron and Larson led the field to the green flag. Larson, Chastain and Reddick battled for the lead after Byron nearly spun out in turn two on lap 3. On lap 5, Reddick got into the back of Larson spinning him out to bring out the first caution.
Reddick led the field to the green on lap 10. On lap 29, last week’s winner Truex Jr. took the lead from Reddick. After green flag pit stops, Hamlin took over the lead.
Hamlin and Truex would swap the lead before Hamlin grabbed it back with eight laps to go and won stage one.
Hamlin won the race off of pit road and led…
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