Bowman passes Hamlin late for victory
RICHMOND, Va. — It didn’t look like Alex Bowman’s race to win, and yet his No. 48 Chevrolet powered to the lead after a laterace restart to secure his first win of the season at Richmond Raceway.
“I can’t believe we just did that at Richmond,” Bowman told his stunned team on the radio. “That’s amazing.”
Meanwhile, the always-thebridesmaid narrative continues for Denny Hamlin, who led 207 laps of the race and swept the first two stages. Hamlin led the restart with Bowman just behind him on the inside lane.
Third place finisher Joey Logano lined up on the outside, but Bowman’s car fired off best in the final 10 laps of the race and he efficiently pushed past the leader Hamlin to take his first checkered flag of the 2021 season, the third in his Cup career.
Hamlin said there were “mixed emotions” about his string of topfive finishes that have characterized the year so far. His second place spot Sunday at his hometown track is Hamlin’s best finish in the first nine races this season, but the driver complained about his No. 11 Toyota having no grip after the final restart.
Hamlin swept the opening two stages of the race and led more than half the laps (207 of 400). While he said it was frustrating to continually finish so close, Hamlin said he wouldn’t trade his strong season so far (he hasn’t finished lower than fifth in eight of the nine races this year) for a single win. Hamlin seems content to bide his time for now rather than stress over a playoff spot.
“We’re smashing everyone,” Hamlin said. “I’d still rather be where we’re at.”
Other Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas showed their speed at Richmond, but late race penalties hurt two
teams late in the race.
Martin Truex Jr. received a speeding penalty with around 100 laps remaining, forcing him to serve a pass-through penalty from second place to send him nearly a lap down. He led 108 laps before the penalty, relinquishing his battle with Hamlin to nextleading driver Logano in the final stage. He still scored a fifth place finish.
Later during green flag pit stops, Kyle Busch was hit with a commitment line violation for failing to have all four tires underneath the box of the commitment
line to pit road. He also served a pass-through penalty that sent him from the top of the running order.
Truex and Busch were able to work their way back into the top 10, with Busch finishing eighth after expressing early frustration with his car setup. JGR teammate Christopher Bell finished fourth for an overall strong showing of the the Toyota team.
Other strong performances at the Virginia short-track came from Ford drivers Aric Almirola and Matt Dibenedetto, as well as Chevrolet driver Austin Dillon, each of whom finished in the top
10.
Almirola ran a clean event after a crash-marred start to the season for his No. 10 team. He finished 12th and 10th in the first two stages, respectively, before climbing top a sixth place finish. Dibenedetto and Dillon also hovered consistently in the top-10 in the final stage.
But Almirola’s Stewart-haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick didn’t fare as well. A blown tire on Harvick’s No. 4 Ford sent his car into the wall to bring out the final caution of the race with fewer than 20 laps to go in what relatively was a wreck-free event. There
only were two cautions for incidents throughout the 300-mile race, the first of which occurred in the second stage when Austin Cindric and Ryan Newman made contact as the field went threewide along with Kyle Larson, to send Newman into the outside wall. Each of those drivers finished multiple laps down.
Harvick also finished laps down after running in eighth and racing one of his most consistent events of the season. The crash forced him to pit road for repairs and tires. The race leaders pitted at that point, too, for late-race adjustments.