With slightly below 25 of 267 laps remaining in Sunday’s NASCAR contest, Hamlin labored his means round William Byron and set his sights on chief Larson.
With 5 laps to go, Hamlin bought side-by-side with Larson for the lead however was pressured to again off. On the ultimate lap, Hamlin once more bought close to Larson off Flip 2 and nudged Larson’s #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet within the left-rear, which knocked Larson into successful in opposition to the wall.
Larson was in a position to hold going however Hamlin cleared him by 1.307 seconds to say his first win of the 2023 season.
The win is the 49th of Hamlin’s NASCAR Cup profession and ends a virtually year-long winless drought; his most up-to-date victory coming final Could within the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.
After doing a celebratory burnout on the entrance straight following his win, Hamlin was booed by the group as he exited his #11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to do his victory interview.
“I’m happy with this complete workforce. I bought place on [Larson] there and I attempted to side-draft him and clipped his left-rear,” Hamlin mentioned. “I’m glad he was in a position to at the very least end.”
Byron, who fell two laps down at one level within the race, rallied again to complete third, forward of Bubba Wallace in fourth as Ross Chastain accomplished the highest 5 to take the general factors lead.
Joey Logano took sixth forward of Chase Elliott and winner final day out at Dover Martin Truex Jr, with Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon rounding out the highest 10.
Whereas Hamlin was celebrating his win, Noah Gragson grabbed Ross Chastain on pitroad and commenced pushing him repeatedly till Chastain struck Gragson within the face. The 2 have been shortly separated by NASCAR officers.
Christopher Bell, factors chief going into the Kansas race, crashed exhausting at Flip 2 in Stage 2 of the race to finish his working prematurely.
NASCAR Cup – Kansas race outcomes (267 laps)
