Denny Hamlin wins the most points despite not having a flawless race

In the Cook Out 400 Hamlin led a race-high 292 laps including the first and second stages plus the fastest lap bonus. However two untimely cautions prevented him from winning a seventh Ridgeway Grandfather Clock.

Chase Elliott gained the lead thanks to the warnings and a bold pit plan by Hendrick crew chief Alan Gustafson, and Hamlin was never able to recover the lost track position.

A loose left-rear and losing the lead?

With 44 laps remaining, Hamlin reported a vibration over his radio in addition to the newly discovered filthy air. After the race, he didn't use that as an excuse.We'll investigate that since it seemed different in the back that run," Hamlin remarked. "But no excuses, we just got beat."

In an interview with Motorsport.com and NASCAR.com, crew chief Chris Gayle confirmed his driver's intuition during post-race technical inspection.It's It appears that we had a problem with the left-rear wheel being a little loose—loose enough that he could definitely tell," Gayle remarked. "There's some fraying on the pins and some wear there, so it was definitely loose."

In addition to the loose wheel, Hamlin claimed that as it grew colder and darker, passing became more difficult. When it counted most, Elliott's air was clearer.Simply put, the extended duration of the cleaner air caused me to heat up my tires, which is what I did to thirty-five other drivers over the majority of the race," Hamlin remarked. "So it just, once you run that dirty air for extended period of time, the car typically goes away."

Gayle added that their cause was not aided by the track taking rubber in the second half.

"We were a little tighter late as rubber got laid down," Gayle stated. "We had a slightly worse experience and found it more difficult to sort of get back through there. To be fair, you might knock it straight off the truck in Stage 1. Everyone tightens up a little bit more when the race begins after they've all made three, four, or five pit stops, right? Therefore, I believe that both of those things are happening to some extent.

In other words William Byron actually passed Hamlin early in the race but by the conclusion Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 was able to re-pass Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 in a manner that Elliott was unable to. We were simply excellent in the initial phase Hamlin remarked. "He wanted to leave and I didn't want to push it. I was certain that I could easily pass him again. Even after he got around me my tires were in better condition than his because I had been in control of that run for so long.

That's essentially what ultimately defeated Hamlin.

Additionally, no one scored more points at Martinsville than Hamlin and Gayle, even though second place would have hurt under the former championship rule, when each extra victory earned five playoff points.Without a doubt, leading that many laps and losing the race is a gut punch," Gayle remarked.

However, that isn't really equitable, is it? You'll get your fair share of them if you do that regularly enough, and that's about all you can do. It appeared that we were also experiencing some restart-related problems, which Denny briefly mentioned. We could have helped ourselves there as well, in my opinion, because we ran an engine setting that might have created some issues and made it more difficult."