Denny Hamlin has made it abundantly clear later in his Cup Series career that one of the few milestones that he’s yet to achieve on his bucket list is kissing the bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a victory in the Brickyard 400.
Hamlin can check that off his list now, but as a car owner rather than as a driver. Even after a rain delay with four laps remaining and a pair of overtime restarts, 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace commanded the final stint of Sunday’s Brickyard 400. He stretched his fuel tank in double overtime, all while holding off reigning Brickyard 400 winner Kyle Larson.
Wallace snapped a 100-race winless streak with the win at Indianapolis, his third career Cup victory. It propels the No. 23 team into the playoffs and off the elimination line bubble. Wallace ranks ninth on the playoff grid with seven playoff points. It will be the second time Wallace has qualified for the playoffs while competing for the team co-owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan (Wallace did drive the No. 45 Toyota during the 2022 postseason, subbing for an injured Kurt Busch).
For the fourth time in Hamlin’s future first-ballot Hall of Fame career, the driver of the No. 11 Toyota finished third at Indianapolis, tying his best effort at the “Racing Capital of the World (2008, 2014, 2018). With limited starts remaining in the historic race, despite inking a multi-year extension with Joe Gibbs Racing over the weekend, he left the historic venue with mixed feelings.
Hamlin was astonished by what his fifth-year team accomplished. Not only did 23XI Racing earn its first victory of the season, but also its first crown jewel triumph.
“I know that there is a part of me out there,” Hamlin said of feeling bittersweet about Wallace’s victory. “It’s not my car number and it sucks that it’s not my [11 team] out there doing it, but I’m still gratified because I took my chances of winning out yesterday. I knew the possibility of winning from the back here was so small. I knew the car that we had was not going to be nearly as fast as what we had yesterday. I was content with getting a good finish and hoped one of the 23XI cars that qualified up front could execute a good day. It looked like the [Nos.] 23 and 45 executed a good day.”
The thought of Hamlin winning from the driver’s seat on Sunday in Hamlin’s 17th try at Indianapolis seemed like a far cry prior to firing the engines. The No. 11 car was the final draw for qualifying and had two-tenths of a second in the bank over his JGR teammate Chase Briscoe halfway through his effort. Hamlin pancaked the outside wall off Turn 2, which was treacherous throughout the session, and crashed into the inside wall. The Chris Gayle-led team unloaded the backup car and JGR had a collaborative effort to prepare the No. 11 car, spending more than seven hours fine tuning on the chassis.
“I knew that I had blown this chance this weekend because of all the obstacles to try to win from the back,” Hamlin noted. “Without luck, it’s nearly impossible. This was the next best result.”
Hamlin chugged at the drop of the green flag, making a quick sprint to 31st in the opening handful of laps. He stalled before dropping a few positions with an ill-handling No. 11 Toyota. In typical Indianapolis fashion, though, strategy was aplenty and Hamlin wasn’t out of the mix. He placed 18th in the opening stage before making power moves during the second stage to reach third, the second best on his strategy.
With one final pit stop remaining, Hamlin knew the No. 11 car had to wait on filling the fuel tank while other competitors could make a shorter pit stop and undercut him on strategy. With that fresh on his mind, the objective was to push Larson hard at the beginning of the final stage to build a buffer on those competitors.
Hamlin pitted for the final time on Lap 120, along with Larson, Carson Hocevar, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Preece and Alex Bowman. Ultimately, Hamlin dropped a few positions, mainly to Joey Logano and Wallace, who had a large gap on the rest of the field.
Until a pop-up rain cell hit the 2.5-mile oval with six laps remaining, Hamlin was in position to escape with a top five finish. He was slotted fourth for the two overtime restarts, though he chose the inside of the third row each time. With William Byron running out of fuel on the last lap, Hamlin finished third, earning his sixth top-five finish in his last eight starts (didn’t compete at Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
“All we needed is for me to not mess up yesterday and have a little better track position, have more options with the fuel and we would’ve had a winner,” Hamlin stated. “But I’m going to be kissing the bricks in street clothes rather than a driver suit.”
With Byron sinking to 16th in the finishing order and Chase Elliott having a mediocre 13th-place finish, Hamlin gained serious ground on the regular-season championship battle. He remains fourth in the standings with four races remaining, 20 points behind Elliott. Entering the weekend, he was 39 points out. Hamlin earned an additional point for turning the Xfinity Fastest Lap on the final lap of the race, earning that extra point for a series-high sixth time in 2025.