Goodyear 400: Denny Hamlin, No. 11 pit crew steal win at Darlington

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Denny Hamlin did not dominate at Darlington Raceway like he did last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, but his No. 11 pit crew put the Joe Gibbs Racing driver in the position to capitalize on a late-race restart to win the Goodyear 400.

Hamlin took the lead right before NASCAR Overtime after an impressive pit stop helped him gain a couple of spots and got him the lead until the end. With this victory, Hamlin now has 56 career wins in the Cup Series, which puts him 11th on the all-time wins list.

“I mean, truthfully, I wanted to race until the end,” Hamlin said. “I thought third place (was) kind of what we had. This is just a quintessential race where you just put yourself in the right place, things will fall your way. They didn’t (really) fall our way – our pit crew won it. It comes down to these crunch-time situations. I had to do my job on pit road executing, but I have to thank Sport Clips, TRD (Toyota Racing Development), Progressive, National Debt Relief, King’s Hawaiian, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, Jordan Brand, Shady Rays, Logitech. My kids, my family, my fiancé. I mean, what a great day! I didn’t see that trophy before the race, but that’s awesome!”

William Byron had a historically dominant performance on Throwback Weekend and ended up with a runner-up finish. Byron swept the first two stages and led the first 243 of 293 scheduled laps, which is the most laps led to ever start a race in the Next Gen era and the most laps he’s ever led in a Cup Series race. Fortunately for Byron, his 56 points earned were the most of the race, and he will add to his lead in the Cup Series standings.

“This No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet team did a great job,” Byron said. “We had a great Chevy all race long. We just needed control of the race there under green and we lost that with the pit sequence. The No. 45 (Tyler Reddick) went really short. We lost a few spots under the green flag sequence, and that was the difference. We had a decent run that time.

“The No. 20 (Christopher Bell) did a good job kind of air blocking and just keeping us behind him. It took me a long time to get by him. We had a great pit stop there at the end and was able to line up on the second row. We just needed the front row to have a shot to win here. It stings to be this close, but at the same time, I’m really proud of that effort by the whole team. It shows what we’re really made of, and hopefully there’s a lot more of that to come.”

The race looked like it was going to go Ryan Blaney’s way after he got around Tyler Reddick with just a handful of laps to go. Unfortunately, for the Team Penske driver, Reddick slammed the wall, causing Kyle Larson to check up and get hit in the rear by Bubba Wallace to bring out the caution.

This was Blaney’s first career top-five finish at Darlington as he ended up in fifth place.

“I’m proud of the effort that we had,” Blaney said. “I’m obviously disappointed in the result. I thought we could have won the race and had a good shot at winning the race. We did the last run perfectly. I thought our pit call was fantastic and our car was fast enough to stay. It had a lot of speed in it late, but a late yellow and then lost the lead off pit road. We didn’t even get to start on the front row and you’re not gonna go from fourth to first in a green-white-checkered here, so it just wasn’t meant to be, but proud of the effort.”

Results from the 2025 Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway are listed below:

Other Race Facts

Tyler Reddick held the lead for 42 laps before hitting the wall multiple times, allowing Ryan Blaney to catch him. Reddick finished fourth.

This was also the fourth straight time that Larson has crashed at Darlington on Throwback Weekend.

After a brutal start to the 2025 season for Ty Gibbs, the 22-year-old finished ninth to get his first top-10 finish since last year’s Kansas fall race.

GRID RANKING

Christopher Bell’s hot start to the 2025 season has put him atop the NASCAR GRID Rating, and he is also the first NASCAR driver to break into the top five of the GRID Ranking in quite some time.

Denny Hamlin’s two consecutive race wins helped him jump 2024 NASCAR GRID Rating Champion William Byron and 2021 NASCAR GRID Rating Champion Kyle Larson. Tyler Reddick rounded out the top five.

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 13. Coverage will begin at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.

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