Hamlin Delivers Toyota’s 200th Victory

MADISON, Ill.— In a race that featured a strange brew of divergent strategies, pole winner Denny Hamlin claimed his series-best fifth victory of the season and advanced to the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Finishing 1.620 seconds ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe in front of a sellout crowd, Hamlin won Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway to earn his first win at the 1.25-mile track and 59th of his career—11th all-time and one win short of Kevin Harvick in 10th.

Hamlin also delivered the 200th victory for Toyota. After taking the checkered flag, the 44-year-old driver had some choice words for his detractors in the grandstands.

“You can either get on the bandwagon or get run over by it,” Hamlin told the crowd, generating another chorus of boos.

But the reality is that Hamlin announced emphatically his stature as a serious contender for the championship that has eluded him during his 20-year Cup career.

“Yeah, it’s so big for everyone at Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing,” Hamlin said. “Progressive Toyota was great there at the end. So happy to get this victory. My dad’s not feeling well at home. Just shout-out to him…

“Fantastic day. Man, couldn’t be better.”

Before the race, grand marshal Bill Murray, who typically plays in Hamlin’s annual golf tournament, leaned into the No. 11 Toyota and talked to the driver.

“Yeah, I just told him to talk to the guys behind me and make sure they stay behind me the rest of the race,” Hamlin quipped. “We made that happen.”

Both Hamlin and Briscoe pitted early during a cycle of green-flag pit stops with roughly 65 laps left in the race.

After Ty Dillon’s contact with the outside wall caused the 10th and final caution on Lap 209—effectively negating the strategy of drivers who were stretching fuel to the end of the event—Hamlin passed Brad Keselowski for the lead moments after the subsequent restart on Lap 216 and held it the rest of the way.

Slowed by an issue with the left rear tire on pit road, Briscoe recovered to secure the runner-up spot.

“I would say our strength was our speed,” Briscoe said. “We had a really good Bass Pro Shops Toyota. Our weakness was just the sloppiness, right? Whether it was me behind the wheel or pit road. I don’t know what the left rear issue was.”

The second race of the 2025 Playoffs widened the chasm between the top 12 in the standings and the four drivers below the current elimination line.

Austin Cindric came home 19th and held onto 12th on the Playoff grid, 11 points ahead of 13th-place Austin Dillon. Four-time winner Shane van Gisbergen finished 25th and fell 15 points below the elimination line.

Continued pit road woes left Alex Bowman (26th) 35 points behind Cindric. An early crash relegated Josh Berry to a second straight last-place finish that left him 45 points below the cut line, almost certainly needing a victory in Saturday’s Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway to advance to the Round of 12.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, other Playoff contenders solidified their positions in the standings. Briscoe, already exempt into the next round on the strength of last Sunday’s win at Darlington, won the first stage.

Bubba Wallace took the honors in Stage 2 on the way to an eighth-place result. Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano ran third, fourth and fifth, respectively, as both Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske reasserted their strength after disappointing performances at Darlington.

For Logano, the inaugural Cup winner at Gateway in 2022, the top-five finish was his fourth straight, a feat no other driver in the series has been able to accomplish.

Christopher Bell ran consistently in the top 10, finished seventh and leaves the St. Louis-area track 32 points above the elimination line. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Kyle Larson and William Byron were 11th and 12th, respectively, and are third and sixth in the Playoff standings, needing only to avert disaster at Bristol to advance the Round of 12.

Larson, however, was the source of antagonism for Blaney. On Lap 135, five circuits before the end of Stage 2, Larson charged into Turns 3 and 4, slipped up the track and sent Blaney spinning.

Though Blaney recovered to finish fourth, he was not happy with the incident.

“I just wanted to know what I did to deserve it,” Blaney said after talking to Larson on pit road. “He just said he made a mistake. That’s fine. Make mistakes. But like at the end of the day, I still got turned. Came from all the way up the bottom of the race track, hit me in the left rear. I know he most likely didn’t mean to do it, but it happened anyway.

“That’s one I’ve got to remember.”

Larson was duly apologetic.

“I just told him I messed up,” Larson said. “I wasn’t meaning obviously to go in there and hit him. The lap before I had got in there and got inside of him, slid up, got to his door, got him tight, got to where I could race him down the frontstretch.

“I was just trying to do that again. I was a little further back into (Turn) 3 than I was the lap before. Just misjudged the point of where I (was) going to get next to him and tuck in. I just clipped him.

“Yeah, all on me. But wasn’t intentional at all. I hope he understands that. Obviously, I hurt his day where he could have gained more points.”