Great American Getaway 400: Hamlin delivers at Pocono, wins third straight Cup race

LONG POND, Pa. — Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin and his team proved once again that they are the hottest team in the sport right now, as the driver of the No. 11 King’s Hawaiian Shake ‘Em Bites Toyota earned his third straight NASCAR Cup Series win of the 2026 season and his eighth career victory at Pocono Raceway.

Hamlin, who is one of the best all-time at Pocono, put on a show every time he got to the lead of the Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA. He also started on pole for the third consecutive race, and by winning three in a row for the first time in his career, Hamlin joins an exclusive list of Fred Lorenzen, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip as the only drivers in NASCAR history to have three straight wins from pole position.

“I wasn’t really stressed about it, but I certainly didn’t know if the 20 (Christopher Bell) was going to be able to push the pace enough to hold us off,” Hamlin said. “I knew the 24 (William Bryon) was closing, but I was kind of managing that gap a little bit, trying to save the front tire on my car, but this whole King’s Hawaiian team did amazing. I have to thank Toyota, National Debt Relief, Progressive, Bob’s Discount Furniture, Sport Clips, Coca-Cola, Jordan Brand, Yahoo, Shady Rays and Logitech G. It’s just been an amazing run. I’ve never been through anything like this.

“It is amazing. I just love coming here. When I came here yesterday morning, the infield was already packed. They just do such a great job at this race track of giving the fans such a great experience, and that is why it sells out. That’s why I love this race track. Not only because of the wins, because of the fans and how passionate they are.”

Hamlin’s championship rival, Tyler Reddick, did not have a great weekend until the race began. After not showing enough speed in practice and qualifying, the in-race adjustments for the No. 45 SupplyHouse Toyota brought the car to life. Reddick made his way through the field to finish in second, his 10th top-five finish of the year.

“It almost worked,” Reddick said about pitting long. “When you go that long, it all kind of falls to how you catch cars. I think we definitely lost a second and a half there when we just took the tires and caught the 9 (Chase Elliott) and 17 (Chris Buescher). We definitely lost time; a couple spots there. Everyone is racing hard for track position. Some of it’s just bad luck, I guess, where you catch cars. It’s a bummer. I mean, if the 11 (Denny Hamlin) wasn’t the winner, you could consider this a good day for our SupplyHouse Toyota team. 35 points just aren’t enough right now. We knew qualifying was going to be tricky coming into this. We weren’t able to get stage points. I know we finished second, but scoring the points we did just didn’t get the job done.”

Despite scoring no stage points, Reddick’s runner-up finish netted 35 points, which keeps him 19 points ahead of Hamlin, who scored 67 points at the “Tricky Triangle.”

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron had his best race since Las Vegas back in March. Byron finished third at Pocono and scored a much-needed 38 points as he sits 11th in the Cup Series standings.

“I think this is probably the first time in four months that I’ve been able to drive the car this way, just be able to make moves and have the balance stay with me,” Byron said. “Just appreciate everyone on this No. 24 Raptor Chevy team and back at Hendrick Motorsports for working really hard, trusting in our tools and the things we can use to prepare. I felt confident throughout the weekend, and I just felt like from lap one on-track, I could push pretty hard. The strategy makes it tough where you have to restart towards the back, but I felt like with our Raptor Chevy, we could manipulate and work through traffic, so that was awesome.”

Results from the 2026 Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA at Pocono Raceway are listed below:

Other Race Facts

John Hunter Nemechek had one of the best races of his NASCAR Cup Series career at Pocono Raceway. The driver of the No. 42 Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Toyota went on to finish fourth, scoring 41 points and leading a race-high and career-high 42 laps in Pennsylvania.

“Yeah, really solid day,” Nemechek said. “Thankful for Pye-Barker, Toyota, Legacy Motor Club — everyone is working really, really hard right now. It gives us the solidification that we are working in the right direction; we are working in the right areas. The last few weeks, both the 42 and the 43 have had good speed. It is nice to finally put a decent result on paper, but overall, it was nice to lead laps today and be able to run up front all day. I don’t know if we necessarily have had that type of day at Legacy Motor Club yet and just hats off to all of the men and women at Legacy Motor Club. Thankful for them, and just grateful to be here.”  

His Legacy Motor Club teammate Erik Jones also had an impressive day, finishing sixth and earning his seventh consecutive finish inside the top 20.

“Yeah, it is nice for the 42 (John Hunter Nemechek) to finally get the result,” Jones said. “They’ve been fast and haven’t been able to put the race together, so happy for them to get some momentum rolling. For our Dollar Tree Camry team, it was just a good day. It was clean, nothing great, nothing really bad. Just a good day. Everybody executed well. I thought we finished the best that we could. I thought we were a little bit better than the 5 (Kyle Larson) at the end, but it was just really hard to pass. Good to keep the momentum rolling. We’ve got two challenging weeks ahead in San Diego and Sonoma that we really have to hammer through and get a result out of both of them. Proud of the effort and hopefully we can keep it rolling.”

Todd Gilliland earned his first career Cup Series stage win in Stage 2. Gilliland finished 19th at the 2.5-mile track.

Christopher Bell looked like he was going to steal one, just seven days removed from fracturing his left wrist at Michigan International Speedway. Bell led 18 laps (138-155) after taking a gamble with a strategy that ultimately did not pay off for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. He was running inside the top five heading into the final lap, but ran out of fuel and needed to pit, ultimately dropping him to 26th.

A mid-race incident occurred on Lap 48 that involved Noah Gragson, Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell, Josh Berry, Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace, Austin Hill, Connor Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen. Hill made contact with van Gisbergen, who then squished Berry into the wall, causing the big accident. Hill was the only driver involved to finish in the top 20.

Daniel Suárez’s 13th-place finish was his 12th straight top-20 finish. In addition, he is now eighth in the Cup Series standings.

GRID RANKING

The 2026 GRID Ranking is the 10th year of the world’s premier motorsports ranking system, which was initially released on Sunday, April 5.

The official ranking includes drivers participating in seven racing series (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, WRC, Supercars, MotoGP). Each driver earns GRID Ratings, which help determine their seeding in the GRID Ranking.

DRIVER	OLD RATING	PREVIOUS RANKING	MOST RECENT FINISH	NEW RATING	NEW RANKING
Tyler Reddick	18.06	2nd	2nd	18.59	2nd
Denny Hamlin	14.90	6th	1st	16.28	4th
Chase Elliott	10.66	18th	11th	9.99	19th
Ty Gibbs	10.26	19th	9th	9.81	21st
Kyle Larson	N/A	N/A	5th	8.88	27th

Week 11 of the GRID Ranking:

Week 11 of the NASCAR GRID Rating saw the gap shrink between Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin once again. Kyle Larson joined the GRID Ranking as Christopher Bell fell out. Chase Elliott and Ty Gibbs remain in the GRID Ranking as well.

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Anduril 250 at the Naval Base Coronado in San Diego on Sunday, June 21. Coverage will begin at 4 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video.

 

GRID Network