Denny Hamlin’s late pit sequence led to an interesting victory for Chase Elliott at the recently concluded race at Martinsville. While Elliott, the Hendrick Motorsports driver, was ecstatic after winning the race, it was the opposite for Hamlin, who dominated most of the race. However, a gamble towards the end cost him a historic 62nd Cup Series win.

Hamlin reveals how he lost to Elliott

In the recent Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin touched upon the moments where he lost the momentum of the race. Despite leading most of the race, the JGR star had to remain happy with a runner-up position, and the reason?

“I noticed when the #1 stayed out, I was like, I’ll be able to get around. I’m getting around them,” Hamlin said. “But I’m now starting on the outside lane. I hadn’t started there all day. I’m going to have to use my tires up a little bit more on the start of this run than I had been in restarts past. But I think had my car been 100% on that last run, we still would have won the race.”

Following this, the #11 driver revealed how a loose wheel pushed him to go for a late pit stop, resulting in him losing out on track position, something from which he never recovered.

“Unfortunately, we did have a loose wheel, and that takes enough grip out of the rear that if you don’t have if your tires aren’t tracking right, you certainly have a lot less rear grip than what you have had previously. So the fact that we were able to just continue, I mean, it’s just a testament to how fast we were and how fast our car was to be able to hang on there with that loose wheel. I think that was the defining moment.”

Elliott capitalized on Denny Hamlin‘s gamble, held his nerve, and won the race by a 0.565 margin. With this, Hamlin lost the race despite leading 292 out of 400 laps.

Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs, and William Byron wrapped up the top five, but it was a great night for HMS and Elliott, who bagged their first win of the year.

Chase Elliott celebrates first HMS win in 2026

With the Martinsville victory, Chase Elliott handed Hendrick Motorsports its first win of the season. Given that HMS is the defending owners’ champion, the win gives them a much-needed impetus going into the season.

“Man, this is awesome,” Elliott said after the victory. “Really cool and going into an off-week too, which means we get to enjoy it for two weeks, not one. It’s the little things, man. You kind of learn to enjoy that stuff. … I know we still have a lot of room for improvement, don’t get me wrong, but great way to kind of cap off this first stretch [of races]. A lot of good momentum for the whole organization, honestly, I think.”

The 2026 Cup season has been a total Toyota affair. Five out of seven wins were claimed by Toyota drivers, as Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott spearheaded the only Ford and Chevrolet wins. Now that Elliott has won a race for Chevy, it will be interesting to see if they can capitalize on it from here on.