Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin have had some notable Martinsville Speedway battles, but the one Sunday came down to pit strategy.
Elliott got track position by pitting earlier than most in the final stage and having the lead when the caution came out with 88 laps remaining. He then outlasted Hamlin, who had dominated the first 300 laps of the race, for the victory.
Back in 2017 at Martinsville, Hamlin spun Elliott in an incident that Elliott fans don’t let Hamlin forget. However, today, there were no fireworks or drama between the two. It was just Elliott with the stronger car at the end.
“How about that?” Elliott, the 2020 series champion and the sport’s most popular driver, said in his interview on the FS1 telecast. “That was awesome.”
Here are my takeaways:
1: Elliott Earns Needed HMS Win
Hendrick Motorsports badly needed a win after getting shut out in the first six races.
Just how uncommon is that? Hendrick had gotten a win in the first three races in each of the last five years.
So when Elliott won, it allowed the entire organization to breathe a sigh of relief.
“There are high expectations within our walls,” Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon said on the FS1 telecast. “Rick [Hendrick] always talks about you build it from the inside. You can’t tear it down from the outside, you can tear it down from the inside.
“In these moments, I’ve been around long enough where I’ve seen us struggle. These guys, they know how to utilize their tools, stick together, work together, share information, get back to the basics. That’s what the discussions have been here recently.”
Chase Elliott scored his first win of the 2026 NASCAR season at Martinsville.
2: What Happened To Hamlin?
Hamlin sat on the pole and led 292 of the first 317 laps but couldn’t rally to catch Elliott over the final 69-lap green-flag run.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, a 61-time race winner, said in his FS1 interview after the race he believed one of his wheels might have been lose over the final run.
“Either way, these are just some of the races that get away from you in your career,” he said. “This one is certainly one of them.”
Martinsville pole-sitter Denny Hamlin finished second on Sunday.
3: Wallace Frustrated
23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace appeared to take out frustration on Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar in turning him and causing a multicar wreck with 76 laps left in the race.
Wallace, in his FS1 interview, said he was frustrated with Hocevar for making it three-wide earlier, but he just misjudged the corner. Hocevar’s team, on its in-car radio, indicated Wallace was frustrated and just dumped Hocevar, who won’t be getting any benefit of the doubt after a start to his career where many view him as being overly aggressive.
“We can win Saturday in practice, just don’t show up on Sunday,” said Wallace, who dropped from third to 11th in the standings. “I hate it for our team. Just frustration.”
Bubba Wallace indicated he was disappointed with how he ran at Martinsville.
4: Nice Logano Rebound
Joey Logano rebounded from an awful 33rd-place finish at Darlington to finish third at Martinsville.
A three-time Cup champion, Logano knows that there will be occasional bad days.
“Weekends like last weekend you start to question everything,” he said in his FS1 interview. “Nice to have a good rebound, solid car.”
Joey Logano’s third-place finish on Sunday was a solid rebound from his performance at Darlington.
4 ½: What’s Next
The Cup Series gets one of its two weekends off as it takes a break for the Easter weekend.
There is still some NASCAR national series racing next weekend. The truck race Friday at Rockingham Speedway and the O’Reilly Series races Saturday at the 1.016-mile oval.
The Cup teams better rest up. After next weekend, they have 16 consecutive weekends of racing.
