MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Denny Hamlin led the most laps at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday evening, but he did not end the day in victory lane. He stood on pit road while Chase Elliott celebrated in front of the gathered NASCAR fans.
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It didn't matter that Hamlin was five laps away from setting a new career-high for laps led at Martinsville Speedway (297), nor did it matter that he won the first two stages.
Once he lost the lead to Ross Chastain and then ultimately Elliott, he just couldn't get back to the front of the pack.
"These cars are so close in speed that track position definitely helps," Hamlin said on pit road after the race. "We just lost control and we still really didn't have good a good car in that last run.
"It's stuff we'll take a look at, but either way, once the (No.) 9 got up front, he could control the pace, which he did."
Hamlin had the car to beat all race. He had the fastest lap at 19.788 seconds, and he had cycled back to the front during the green flag pit cycle.
However, the situation changed after a caution for a brake rotor on the track. Ross Chastain stayed out on a strategy call while other drivers headed down pit road. This made him the control car with just under 80 laps to go.
"No, like I talked about, the lap time falloff has not really reached a second here at this track yet," Hamlin said. "That's typically when you're going to want to pit every time for tires.
"With him going long that green flag run, it gave him the option when the caution comes out to stay out because he didn't have many laps on his tires."
The field restarted with Chastain in first and Hamlin in second, but Hamlin fell to third on the restart as the caution quickly flew due to a crash involving Bubba Wallace, Carson Hocevar, and many others.
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The restart order with 69 laps remaining in the race featured Chastain in first and Elliott in second. Hamlin lined up third. Once the green flag flew, Elliott cleared for the lead while Hamlin began battling with both Chastain and Ryan Blaney.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver ultimately moved into second place after getting past both Blaney and Chastain, but he fell more than one second back of Elliott. At that point, he had to push his car to get back within striking distance.
The veteran driver got back to Elliott's bumper, but he could not make the pass. He got loose dealing with lapped traffic, and he lost his momentum. He also began dealing with some unexpected issues on braking.
Hamlin did what he could behind the wheel, but he just could not take back control of the race that he had previously dominated.
He had to settle for a runner-up finish instead of his seventh win at Martinsville Speedway. Although he left the track with a race-high 56 points.
"Just really came from that bad restart I had there beside (Chastain)," Hamlin told Fox Sports. "Just not much more that I could have done there. I felt like we gave it our all."
