Bowman’s late surge turns back Hamlin
Alex Bowman passed Denny Hamlin on a restart with 10 laps to go and drove away to win the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway for his third career victory in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Bowman produced a stunning conclusion to a race that Hamlin had dominated along with Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano. With all eyes on Hamlin and Logano on the restart, Bowman ducked inside Hamlin, easily gained the spot held it to the finish, becoming the eighth winner in nine Cup races this season.
Bowman's victory in No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports came on the same day the former driver of the car, seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, made his debut in the IndyCar
Series in Alabama. It was the first victory for the No. 48 since June 4, 2017.
Hamlin, who raced with the hashtag #fedexstrong on the back of his car and on his pit wall to honor the eight people who were fatally shot at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis on Thursday, had a dominant car for the second week in a row but couldn't carry it through to the finish. He did notch his eighth top-five finish in nine starts this season.
“We just didn't take off very good there,” Hamlin said of the last restart.
Last week, he led 276 laps at Martinsville Speedway, but lost the lead to Truex, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, with 15 laps to go.
Hamlin did hang on Sunday to finish second, followed by Logano, Christopher Bell and Truex.
IndyCar: Alex Palou celebrated his move to Chip Ganassi Racing with his first career IndyCar victory by beating a pair of series champions to win the season-opening Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham.
The Spaniard used a two-stop strategy on the road course to take control of the race but still had to hold off hardcharging Will Power and Scott Dixon over the closing laps. The 24-year-old beat Power by .4016 seconds to claim his first win in his first race driving for the storied Ganassi organization.
“We knew (a win) was possible because we knew we had the best team and the best cars,” Palou said.
Dixon, the six-time and reigning IndyCar champion, finished third and was followed by pole-sitter Pato O'Ward, who was on a three-stop strategy.
Seven-time NASCAR Cup series champion Jimmie Johnson made his IndyCar debut and finished 19th Three-time Barber winner Josef Newgarden triggered an uncharacteristic opening lap crash that involved Colton Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Felix Rosenqvist.
Formula One: Max Verstappen eased to victory in an incident-packed Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola, Italy, as he comfortably beat Lewis Hamilton, who almost crashed out after a rare error from the world champion.
Hamilton hit a wall in a race that was also temporarily suspended following a separate incident involving his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Verstappen led for the majority of the race and beat Hamilton by 22 seconds for the 11th win of his career.