RIDGEWAY, Va. - Ending on the longest run of the day, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson were forced to grind out solid finishes at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.
But each was able to finish off the job, with Elliott coming home fourth and Larson fifth, capping productive points days for each team as the NASCAR Cup Series regular season is now more than a quarter of the way in the books.
For Elliott, the result punctuated a weekend in which he hovered near the front throughout. The No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet rolled off second on Sunday, finished eighth in stage one after a couple of cautions and some varying pit strategies, and then earned nine points by coming home second in stage two.
The final laps of that segment turned into a game of cat-and-mouse between Elliott and eventual-race-winner Denny Hamlin. And though Elliott was able to close in, he never could quite break back into the lead after pacing 42 circuits in the early going. Elliott, who praised his team and the speed of the car, said ultimately, that was the difference in the race.
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"Thought our car was really good, honestly," Elliott said. "Thought everybody on our NAPA team did a good job (on Saturday), leading into the weekend and then certainly, getting this thing where it needed to be I thought for balance for today. All that was really good.
"I just needed control of the race. I really needed to get to Denny there at the end of that second stage to try and get control ... Just that little bit of being able to control this thing from that point forward means a lot."
Larson, who won last week's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, also claimed a couple of stage points with a ninth-place showing in stage two. The third stage featured a few cautions on a day in which 10 yellow flags waved, a new record for a 400-lap race at the 0.526-mile short track.
A couple of those were beneficial for Larson as he slowly picked his way closer to the front. The driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet broke into the top five on the last restart with 75 laps to go and was able to make it stick, coming home just behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.
Both William Byron and Alex Bowman were caught on the wrong side of a couple of caution flags and mired in traffic, found the going tough. Byron, who won the spring race at Martinsville in 2024, finished 22nd with Bowman coming home 27th.
The Cup Series will return next week for Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway.
Who won the NASCAR race today?
- Denny Hamlin, No. 11
- Christopher Bell, No. 20
- Bubba Wallace, No. 23
- Chase Elliott, No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet
- Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet
- Ross Chastain, No. 1
- Ryan Preece, No. 60
- Joey Logano, No. 22
- Chase Briscoe, No. 19
- Todd Gilliland, No. 34
- Ryan Blaney, No. 12
- Michael McDowell, No. 71
- Ty Gibbs, No. 54
- Tyler Reddick, No. 45
- Ty Dillon, No. 10
- Zane Smith, No. 38
- Kyle Busch, No. 8
- Austin Dillon, No. 3
- Carson Hocevar, No. 77
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47
- Daniel Suarez, No. 99
- William Byron, No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet
- AJ Allmendinger, No. 16
- Chris Buescher, No. 17
- John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42
- Brad Keselowski, No. 6
- Alex Bowman, No. 48 Ally Chevrolet
- Justin Haley, No. 7
- Noah Gragson, No. 4
- Cody Ware, No. 51
- Riley Herbst, No. 35
- Josh Berry, No. 4
- Cole Custer, No. 41
- Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88
- Casey Mears, No. 66
- Burt Myers, No. 50
- Austin Cindric, No. 2
- Erik Jones, No. 43