“It was tough, those guys gave me a run for it, no doubt about it.” Denny Hamlin admitted these words at the end of a challenging race at the Monster Mile. Besides the 56-minute rain delay and twin overtime restarts, Hamlin had a pack of hungry rivals on his heels at Dover Motor Speedway. They included his own teammates vying to claim the Joe Gibbs Racing win for themselves. However, the biggest threat came from Hendrick Motorsports #9 Chase Elliott.

The 2020 Cup Series champion was supposed to be the star of the Monster Mile. Chase Elliott led for 238 of 407 laps, raising fans’ expectations by hinting at his next win after Atlanta, but some team-inflicted wounds ruined his chances, as Denny Hamlin got the best of him. Although Hamlin had a hard time accomplishing the task, as his crew chief revealed.

Denny Hamlin watched his rival’s moves

During the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe had a mission. That was to prevent their teammate, Denny Hamlin, from protecting his Dover crown. But Hamlin was not letting this slip. He overcame Bell on a restart with 60 laps to go as Bell spun, then with 8 laps to go, he stayed in front of the #20 again, who spun for the second time in the race!

It was Chase Briscoe who gave Hamlin an even tougher fight, running door-to-door with him until the last lap, when Hamlin was able to clear him with a 0.310-second margin. These two were tough contenders – but since both Bell and Briscoe belong to JGR, Hamlin could predict their strategies better. His crew chief felt Chase Elliott‘s threat to be greater. The Hendrick Motorsports driver dominated the race, winning stage 1 and overcoming an early pit road miscue. The turning point of the Dover race came during the red flag caution for rain with 14 laps to go.

The shuffles in race strategy were crucial at the time, as Denny Hamlin‘s crew chief, Chris Gayle, pointed out. He said, “The pivot was when the caution came out there, and we had 8 laps on our tires through the cycle. And you knew the 20 [Christopher Bell] and the 3 [Austin Dillon] were gonna have to pit. They hadn’t had the tires yet.” Gayle made the race-determining pit call of letting Hamlin go on older tires. Since Dover thrives on dirty air, this strategy proved to be correct. Gayle continued, “We had talked about, like myself, the engineers…we all thought staying out was the right thing to do.” However, there was only one thorn in their path: “But I didn’t know what the 9 [Chase Elliott] was gonna do.“

Chase Elliott was essentially in control of the race pace, so Denny Hamlin had to tread carefully around him. Hamlin could cycle to the lead only when the No. 9 HMS crew chief, Alan Gustafson, made a blunder by calling Elliott for two fresh tires. Gayle reflected on the challenging situation: “We were just waiting to see what the 9 is gonna do… When the 9 committed to pitting, we knew okay, we’re gonna get the front row, we’re gonna have clean air. That’s the only thing we can hope for… If we had come down taking right side tires, we were gonna wind up being 4th on the restart. Maybe we would have passed the 3, I don’t know about the 9 or the 20.” Despite this setback, Elliott came out of Dover with a small win, though: he is now the championship standings leader, and Hamlin praised his consistency.

Chase Elliott was criticized all season long for not leading enough laps and struggling to win until his Atlanta triumph. The #9 was looking considerably off-pace compared to his HMS teammates, William Byron and Kyle Larson, who led the standings. However, Elliott still hasn’t finished outside the top-20, showing unreal consistency which has reached new heights over the past month, with 4 top-5 finishes in his last 6 races! Speaking on his turnaround, Hamlin said, “He’s made a massive run, and it’s not just because of this one week. I just feel like they’ve turned the corner, and they are stronger now than what they were.”

Eventually, Denny Hamlin could clear Elliott’s threat. But another Chase blocked his path, and could have made things worse.

Hamlin was ‘let off’ lightly

Chase Briscoe is still in his first season at Joe Gibbs Racing, but the incredible speed with which he is adapting to the team has been jaw-dropping. He already owns 10 top tens, 8 top fives, and a Pocono victory under his belt in 2025. For the past two weekends, though, his pace has been like a thunderous blur. After staying on Shane van Gisbergen’s heels during the Sonoma race, he did not let Denny Hamlin rest in Dover.

Hamlin had to hold off Briscoe on consecutive overtime restarts. The #19 certainly pushed Hamlin on that final two-lap sprint to the checkered flag. But apparently, Briscoe went softer than he could have. It was surprising to see Chase Briscoe, on two fresher tires than Hamlin, be unable to make the winning pass. While aero-blocking certainly played a role, it was team morale that took priority for Briscoe.

Briscoe admitted to avoiding aggression: “I could have put him in a really, really, really bad air. I did 50 percent of what I probably could have done because I didn’t want to wreck him. But certainly, if it was another car, I could have just opened my hands up and I would have won the race. It had been dirty, but I could have won the race.”

Clearly, Denny Hamlin was spared in a lot of ways by the two Chases. The upcoming races may spell a different story, so let us wait and see how it unfolds.