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After a long struggle, Denny Hamlin's efforts finally paid off. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver drove his Toyota Camry No. 11 to victory lane, edging out Byron and Harvick to collect the Toyota Owners 400 checkered flag at Richmond Raceway.
His win was not only a huge achievement for him but a great achievement for Joe Gibbs Racing as well as Toyota. It was Hamlin’s first win of the season, the first win for Toyota, and first win for Joe Gibbs Racing since the start of the season.
Toyota's vehicles have been underperforming so far this season, but Hamlin’s victory shows they're taking steps in the right direction.
Highlighting the 'embarrassing' results in Phoenix, NASCAR on NBC tweeted David Wilson's explanation of how Toyota has been able to get back on track.
After his win at NASCAR’s first short race of the season, Denny Hamlin thanked everyone who helped him succeed, starting with JBR and all of his sponsors. He spoke about his win, stating:
“You just have a tough season and things aren’t going well. It seems like everything is not going your way and the law of averages say things are going to work out and we’ll get our performance better and today’s the day where it all matched up.”
How Denny Hamlin managed to take the lead at Toyota Owners 400
The veteran driver made up ground on the last lap of the finals stage despite starting on pole 13. With 20 laps to go, Denny Hamlin was sitting in the top five running behind Kyle Larson in fourth place.
Ten laps later, he was still fighting Kyle Larson, Harvick and Truex Jr. to take the lead from Byron. With six laps remaining, he out-muscled Martin Truex Jr., taking second place and gaining a clear angle to edge out Byron.
In the final four laps of the race, he managed to take the lead from Byron.
Despite this being his first win of the season, it was also his first top-ten finish of the season. After recording a 37th place finish in his first race, he finished 32th, 13th, 19th, 29th and 18th, respectively.
After the race, Denny Hamlin shared how much it meant to him. He thanked his team for not giving up on him. In the video posted by NASCAR, he mentioned that:
"So proud this whole FedEx carry team has never given up. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind maybe just low but they got this car right there towards the end and wow, just unbelievable.We need something a good run to kind of balance ourselves on other tracks and obviously I think we got to hear"
Following his impressive finish at Richmond, he will look to maintain the same spirit for the rest of the season.
