Bowman surges past Hamlin late to win Richmond
Alex Bowman scored his third career win in the NASCAR Cup Series by charging past Denny Hamlin off the final restart Sunday at Richmond Raceway.
Bowman came off pit road third and then chose the inside lane to restart third with 12 laps remaining. Race leader Denny Hamlin got the launch on the restart, but Bowman quickly overtook Joey Logano for the second position and then got to Hamlin’s inside a lap later. Ultimately, he completed the winning pass in turns 1 and 2 and drove away.
“Just a badass race car, just as simple as that,” Bowman said. “Greg Ives (crew chief) and all the guys have to deal with me at short tracks, and I drive these places really wrong, and we kind of instead trying to make me figure it out went to work on getting the race car where I needed it to be. Greg has done such an amazing job making that happen.”
Bowman rebounded from an uncontrolled tire at the end of the second stage. The victory is his first this season and gives Hendrick Motorsports three wins with three different drivers through the first nine races. It is Bowman’s first victory in the No. 48 Chevrolet, and the first for sponsor Ally.
Hamlin said he didn’t take off well on the final restart. For the second straight week, Hamlin led the most laps, only to be passed for the win in the closing laps. Hamlin won both stages at Richmond and led 207 of 400 laps.
The run to the finish was set up by a caution when Kevin Harvick lost a right rear tire and crashed in turn 1 with 18 laps to go. At the time, Hamlin had been pressuring Logano for the race lead and ended up beating Logano off pit road to control the final restart.
“We just didn’t take off quite as good there at the end,” Hamlin said. “I tried to warm it up and do everything that I could – just the 48 (Bowman) had a little more on those last few laps and I couldn’t hold the bottom. Once he got the position, we were just shut down there.”
Logano finished third. Completing the top five were Christopher Bell in fourth and Martin Truex Jr. in fifth.
Aric Almirola finished sixth, William Byron seventh and Kyle Busch eighth.
Verstappen avoids spins to win: Max Verstappen admits he nearly threw away victory in a “stressful” Emilia Romagna Grand Prix when his mistake almost led to a spin from the lead Sunday.
The Red Bull driver had taken the lead from Lewis Hamilton in wet conditions at the start of the Formula 1 race in Imola, Italy, and held on to it under pressure on a drying track, receiving a boost when Hamilton went off and damaged his front wing. With Charles Leclerc behind him during a race restart with 30 laps left, Verstappen almost spun when trying to accelerate too as the safety car peeled into the pits, but he just gathered the car at the penultimate corner and had a comfortable run after that.
Verstappen ended up finishing 22 seconds ahead of Hamilton his 11th F1 win.
Lando Norris took third.
– Chris Medland, RACER