Hamlin pushes Larson into the wall for 50th career win

After the final round of green flag pitstops, Larson and Hamlin battled for the lead on a restart with seven of 160 laps remaining – just after Alex Bowman lost control of his car racing Hamlin and crashed at Turn 3.

Hamlin got to the inside of Larson, drifted up the track and nudged him briefly into the wall. Hamlin skirted by to claim the lead and then held off Tyler Reddick until a last-lap caution that confirmed Hamlin’s victory.

It concluded an ill-tempered race up and down the field, as earlier in the race Austin Dillon slammed into the Turn 1 wall after contact from Reddick, which knocked Dillon out of the race.

Before leaving the scene in an ambulance, an angry Dillon threw his helmet at Reddick’s car as he went by under caution.

When Hamlin brought his #11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back to celebrate, fans booed him loudly and threw bottles on the track.

The win is the second of the 2023 season for Hamlin and 50th of his Cup career.

“Both guys wrecked themselves,” Hamlin said about incidents he had with Bowman and Larson.

“He [Larson] missed the corner first and evidently he didn’t have his right-side tyres clean. You know, you have an option in those positions – it’s either hold it wide-open and hit the fence or lift and race it out.

“That was a choice they made. I didn’t hit either one of them.”

Reddick recovered from his clash with Dillion to take second place ahead of Martin Truex Jr in third with Kevin Harvick and Ty Gibbs rounding out the top five.

Christopher Bell produced a decent performance after a run of poor results to take sixth place, ahead of Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Harrison Burton took an impressive eighth ahead of Erik Jones, as 2020 NASCAR Cup champion Chase Elliott completed the top 10.

Polesitter Byron could only recover to 14th place after being held up in incidents, just one place behind fellow title contender Ross Chastain.

NASCAR Cup Series – Pocono race results