Last Sunday, Denny Hamlin powered through his 57th career win at Michigan International Speedway’s FireKeepers Casino 400, his third at the track and first since 2011. With a lawsuit swirling around his 23XI Racing team and his third child on the way, Hamlin looked unfazed, outdueling William Byron in a fuel-strategy masterclass to take the checkered flag. The Joe Gibbs Racing star celebrated by trolling the Michigan crowd with an “O-H” sign, eating up their boos like candy. The victory, his third of 2025, solidified Hamlin as a playoff powerhouse, but it was his post-race antics that stole the show.

The race was a wild ride from the green flag. Chase Briscoe started on pole, but William Byron grabbed the lead early. Stage 1 stayed clean, with Chris Buescher snagging the win on Lap 35. Stage 2 turned chaotic, with yellow flags flying and a red flag on Lap 67 after Alex Bowman and Cole Custer wrecked in Turn 2. Stage 3 brought more cautions, and Hocevar led until a Lap 182 tire blowout handed Byron the lead—until Hamlin’s late charge sealed the deal.

Many tired downplaying this milestone achievement by the JGR driver, citing it as a fuel mileage win. But now that the numbers are out, there can be no complaints about how good the racing at Irish Hills was.

Hamlin’s spooky-accurate poll call

Denny Hamlin didn’t just win at Michigan—he stirred up a storm with an eerily accurate claim about a fan poll. On Dirty Mo Media’s podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi spilled the tea on a post-race exchange. As Gluck packed up after the press conference, Hamlin sauntered over, smirking, and called out Bianchi: “Your boy here asked me about the poll.” Bianchi had quizzed Hamlin on Gluck’s weekly X poll, asking fans if the race was good. Hamlin, playing spoiler, revealed Bianchi’s guess, shouting, “By the way, Jordan’s gonna guess around 86%!” as he left the media center.

Bianchi defended himself, saying, “Any good intrepid journalist does research, asks tough questions, kicks tires, unearths things.” He admitted to asking Hamlin’s take but insisted his own guess was 91%. Gluck, skeptical, teased Bianchi about sticking to his number or shifting to dodge Hamlin’s leak. The poll results dropped jaws: 92.2% of fans voted Michigan a “good race,” the season’s top score, beating the Coca-Cola 600’s 90.2%. It was the best Michigan race in 15 polled, the top 2-mile track event, and Hamlin’s fourth win in the poll’s 90% + club, passing Kyle Larson for the lead. Who saw that coming?

While Hamlin is enjoying this win, he wasn’t always a fan of fuel mileage racing. If anything, he always spoke against it on his podcast shows. Last year after the Brickyard 400, he argued, “I’m so tired of running fuel mileage races where we’re all running half-throttle. I wish we could do something about it, but it’s like, I don’t know, it helps you sometimes, it hurts you sometimes. I just think for the racing’s sake, man, do we really want NBC to have to sit here and explain all these different things and fuel?”

Well, the script flipped this time around, and he didn’t mind parking his #11 Toyota Camry in the victory lane just because he was doing better on fuel than the rest of the competition. It is worth noting that he and Byron were in the thick of action at Charlotte Motor Speedway a few weeks ago, and Hamlin had to pit after he didn’t have enough fuel in his car. So, it was as if he got one back last Sunday.

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Hamlin’s fuel game outfoxes Byron

Denny Hamlin gave a shout-out to his pit crew for keeping him in the race at Michigan. On the last stop, he was too eager to get back on the track and forced his fueler into a mistake. As the #11 Camry rushed out of the pit box, the gas can was still attached to the car, and it almost came flying outside the box. Had it not been for Dylan, one of the crew members who caught the flying can, the #11 team would have had a penalty.

“I have three points of reference to leave. I either have a crew chief that says go. I have a fuel man that gives me the nod or Dylan that gives me the, you know, you can go. I chose not to listen to any of them and just took off,” Hamlin said in a video posted by Joe Gibbs Racing.

Initially, it looked like it was a choreography that the #11 crew had practised to tackle fuel mileage. But either way, the #11 team improvised and got to celebrate their third win of the season. With a good chunk of playoff points in hand and a lot of racing left in the regular season, who knows, this just might be the year for Denny Hamlin to settle his business in NASCAR and claim that championship.