Truex, Hamilton battle to end to secure victory
Two of Martin Truex Jr.’s three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wins this season have come after a hardfought battle with the driver who had him fuming at the end of the 2018 season.
Truex has now bested Joey Logano at Richmond and Charlotte Motor Speedway. At Richmond, Truex broke through for the first time this season and spoke afterward of being raced respectfully by Logano. Sunday night, he won his second Coca-Cola 600 after holding off Logano before the race’s final caution flew on lap 392 and then when the race restarted and they drove back to the top two spots with five laps to go.
“I think he’s a tough competitor, a guy that’s tough to beat,” Truex said of Logano. “He’s always up front. So yeah, he’s a great driver, and him and his team do a great job of being in position to win races. Those are the kind of guys you like to beat, so it feels good to win against him.”
Asked if he and Truex raced each other hard but fair, Logano replied, “Yeah, of course. Haven’t we every time?”
Truex didn’t believe so last fall when Logano moved him on the final lap at Martinsville for the win. In doing so, Logano clinched his spot in the title race while Truex felt he wasn’t raced as clean as he had treated Logano when trying to take the lead from him for several laps beforehand.
On the final restart in Charlotte, it was Truex third and Logano sixth. Truex made it four-wide on the backstretch between David Ragan, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Newman, eventually getting to the inside and then clearing Ragan off Turn 4. But coming with him was Logano, who had such a run on Truex that he got into his back bumper and pushed the No. 19 Toyota down the frontstretch.
“I didn’t feel the rear tires on the ground, I’ll tell you that much,” Truex said of the restart. “Just trying to hold it straight and not let him get to my inside going into (Turn) 1, so that’s kind of what I was trying to do.”
Truex drove away over the next few laps for the win.
“Man, what a race,” he said. “Up and down, you never know what can happen in these things, and we were so good early on, blew that tire, hit the fence, and I’m like, we’re done. How are we going to fix this year? I didn’t know how bad it was. But the guys worked hard, fixed it up.”
Formula One: Lewis Hamilton says he was fighting in the style of Niki Lauda to hold on for victory in the Monaco Grand Prix.
An early pit stop during a safety car period saw Hamilton fit medium tires while the rest of the top four all opted for hards. On a softer compound, Hamilton had to try to make his tires last to the end of the race and was forced to hold off Max Verstappen for a number of laps — with the pair even making contact in the closing stages — and he says it was the most challenging race of his career, coming just six days after Lauda died.
“That was definitely the hardest race I’ve had but nonetheless I really was fighting with the spirit of Niki — he’s been such an influence in our team and I know he will be looking down and taking his hat off,” Hamilton said. “I was trying to stay focused and make him proud that it’s been the goal all week and we truly miss him.”
Hamilton added that the fight with Verstappen was a truly difficult one for him, despite how difficult it is to overtake in Monaco.
“It was intense. I was never going to come in — I learned the hard way,” he said, referencing the 2015 race in which a stop for fresh tires cost him track position and ultimately a shot at the win.
Lauda died last Monday after a number of health issues over the past eight months, including a double lung transplant. The three-time world champion and 25-time grand prix winner was nonexecutive chairman at Mercedes.
Nicknamed “The Rat,” the Austrian was as famous for his recovery from a horrific accident in the 1976 German Grand Prix as he was for the world titles he won for Ferrari in 1975 and 1977 and then McLaren in 1984.