Denny Hamlin triumphs in double overtime at Dover

NBC Sports

2 days ago

Denny Hamlin held off the field in two overtime restarts to win Sunday's rain-delayed Cup race at Dover Motor Speedway.
It is Hamlin's series-high fourth win of the season and 58th of his career. This also was the second year in a row Hamlin has won at Dover.
Hamlin seemed on the way to the victory before rain stopped the race 14 laps from the scheduled end at the 1-mile concrete track. That delayed the race 56 minutes.
'It was tough,' Hamlin told TNT. 'Those guys gave me a run for it, no doubt about it.'
Hamlin led 67 of 407 laps.
Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe finished second. Alex Bowman placed third, Kyle Larson was fourth and Ty Gibbs completed the top five.
Chase Elliott, who led a race-high 238 laps, finished sixth. The top six were either from Joe Gibbs Racing or Hendrick Motorsports.
Bubba Wallace, who entered holding the final playoff spot, finished seventh.
Gibbs finished ahead of Tyler Reddick (12th) to advance to next week's $1 million final at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Ty Dillon, the lowest seed in the 32-driver event, finished 20th and beat John Hunter Nemechek (21st) to advance to next week's final of the In-Season Challenge.
Christopher Bell finished 18th Sunday after two spins, including one in overtime.
On the first green-flag lap after the rain delay, Bell spun while racing Hamlin for the lead. Noah Gragson hit the wall and collected points leader William Byron. Byron finished 31st. Gragson placed 32nd.
While racing side-by-side with Elliott for the lead off the restart at the beginning of the final stage, Bell spun in front of the field. No one hit him.
'Underbody's fine,' crew chief Adam Stevens told Bell. 'We're better than all of these jokers here, so we're going to have about 134 more when we get it. We can get back up in there into the top five, not a problem. Nice and smooth. Take a deep breath.'
Bell caught a break in the final stage. With rain approaching, he stayed out during a green-flag cycle. The caution came out at Lap 337 for rain and Bell had yet to pit and was leading. Only seven cars were on the lead lap at the time of caution.
Rain later stopped Bell. He was running second to Hamlin when rain came out and stopped the race after 386 laps.
Stage 1 winner: Chase Elliott
Stage 2 winner: Christopher Bell
Next: The series races at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, July 27 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.