Denny Hamlin Posts a Great Showing at Martinsville, Earning His Third Third-Place Finish in 2021

Denny Hamlin demonstrated yet again on Sunday at Martinsville that he will be a title contender this season.

Late in the race, Hamlin held the lead, but with pressure from eventual race winner Martin Truex Jr. and lapped traffic, he couldn’t keep it.

“That’s just the cards we were dealt,” said Hamlin. “We had a really good short-run car. We just didn’t have a good long-run car. We saved a set of tires – we had the tire advantage – but we couldn’t get the car to turn on the long run. That was the bugaboo, you could say, but overall, the FedEx Camry team performed well. We had a really fast car for 20 laps or so, and then it would just kind of go away. Fortunate for us, we had a great day and had ourselves a shot at it, but just wasn’t quite good enough.

We had a fast car for 20 or 25 laps especially, but after that our car just faded and didn’t have the grip that the 12 (Ryan Blaney) or certainly the 9 (Chase Elliott) and the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.) had there at the end. Gave ourselves a shot by getting that restart and getting around them, but inevitably we just didn’t have a fast enough car after 30 laps.”

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Hamlin looked like the Hamlin of old on Sunday at a track where he’s had a lot of success. With five wins, he will always be a favorite as the series heads to Martinsville, although his last triumph there was in 2015. Sunday, Hamlin led 276 of the 500 laps, the second-most he has ever led at Martinsville. In 2009, Hamlin led 296 laps on his way to second place. From the 2015 fall race to the 2017 fall race, Hamlin led a total of 296 laps at Martinsville. In just one race on Sunday, he came up just 20 laps short of that number.

Hamlin is a contender, but he hasn’t reached his prime yet. Hamlin has come close to winning a few races this season, only finishing outside the top five once. With his performance this season, he is the best non-winner in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff points standings. His third-place finish was his third of the season and matched his season-best.

“We just continue to run top-three every single week,” added Hamlin. “Every stage, every finish – we’re right there. We just need to get a little better. We’re barely missing it. We led a lot of laps and that’s because our competitors that we were racing against, had some issues. We had a good short-run car that could keep us upfront on the restarts. Overall, a lot to learn.”

The Toyota Owners 400 will take place next weekend in Richmond, Virginia, on the NASCAR Cup Series. Another track where Hamlin has had success, but not recently. He’s won three races in Richmond in his career, the most recent in 2016. Last season, he led 45 laps but finished in 12th place. Will Richmond be the site of Hamlin’s first triumph of 2021?

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