Denny Hamlin won the pole at Michigan International Speedway in search of his 63rd win. The task was made harder when, for the second week in a row, he was sent to the back of the pack, but each time he pulled away with the win.

Hamlin backed up his 2025 win at Michigan and his win last weekend in Nashville with a dominant run late in the race, outpacing the field by more than a mile per hour and beating Erik Jones to the line by 11.11 seconds after restarting in fifth on the final restart with 38 laps to go. This marked Hamlin’s largest win margin in a Cup Series win of all time.

Jones rebounded from hitting the wall while trying to avoid Connor Zilisch’s second spin in the first stage. Bubba Wallace led laps in the first and second stages and finished third, ahead of Carson Hocevar, who rebounded from starting a multi-car crash in stage one for a strong finish at his home track.

With this win, Hamlin ties Kyle Busch on the all-time win list in the Cup Series, two weeks after the shocking, tragic loss of Busch.

Knowing that the day of the tie would be coming, the Joe Gibbs Racing team had a No. 18 flag made for Hamlin to carry on his post-win burnout, with a JGR-stylized 1 and a Richard Childress Racing-stylized 8 to make up Busch’s longest-used number, with which he won his two championships at JGR.

This race win also comes just four days after the NASCAR world learned of the passing of Ned Jarrett, the first driver to make the No. 11 famous.

“The off-season, it was rough for me,” Hamlin said. “It was rough for the NASCAR family, we lost a lot of people. This week, we lost gentleman Ned, the original Badass of the 11. We’re still thinking of Kyle, Samantha, Brexton, Lennix. Just an unbelievable feeling to be able to strap in every week, and I don’t take it for granted. This opportunity that I’m in, I’m just making the best of it.”

The race was marred with cautions, starting with back-to-back cautions in the opening ten laps for Trackhouse rookie Connor Zilisch, who lost his No. 88 Chevrolet solo twice.

Later, championship leader Tyler Reddick was taken out on a restart following a push gone wrong by Carson Hocevar on John Hunter Nemechek. This marked Reddick’s first DNF of the season and first finish outside of the top 15.

With Hamlin’s win and Reddick’s DNF, Hamlin cut his points lead in half.

In the third stage, Chase Elliott’s Chevy snapped on him, sending him around and into Christopher Bell, who hit the wall hard enough to bend the SAFER barrier, bringing out a red flag with 50 laps remaining. Both drivers were able to walk to the ambulance, and Elliott has been released.