While Hendrick Motorsports' four wins as an organization were the most of any race team this season entering Dover, Chase Elliott had been the one lonely soul who had yet to visit Victory Lane under the Hendrick banner this season. That problem was solved on Monday, as the First State became the site of Elliott's first win of 2022.
After taking the lead from Ross Chastain on a restart, Chase Elliott was able to drive away from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. over the final run and win the rain-delayed DuraMAX Drydene 400 at Dover to take his first victory of 2022 and the 14th of his Cup career on Monday. Elliott's win snapped a 26-race winless streak that had dated back to Road America last July, and it is also his first win on an oval since his Phoenix victory that won him the Cup Series championship in 2020.
With Elliott entering the winner's circle, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers -- Elliott, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, and William Byron -- have now won this season.
DuraMAX Drydene 400 unofficial results
- #9 - Chase Elliott
- #47 - Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- #1 - Ross Chastain
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #48 - Alex Bowman
- #5 - Kyle Larson
- #18 - Kyle Busch
- #17 - Chris Buescher
- #4 - Kevin Harvick
- #43 - Erik Jones
After rain forced the race to be postponed after 78 laps on Sunday, crew chief Alan Gustafson had felt that the No. 9 team hadn't brought a particularly good piece to The Monster Mile. However, circ*mstances ended up falling the way Elliott and his team needed them to.
"Had some good circ*mstances, finally. Just really appreciate Alan and our entire team for just sticking with it," Elliott told Fox Sports. "We've had some tough races over the last four or five months ... Those guys, they've been deserving of one for awhile. Glad we could get across the line first."
Here's more from the finish at Dover and Chase Elliott's first win of the season.
Wheel woes
After a flurry of loose wheels and four-race suspensions to begin the season, it had seemed that teams and pit crews had finally gotten adjusted to the new single lug nuts of the Next Gen car without major issues. But Monday in Dover, improperly installed wheels had a major impact on how the race played out.
Throughout the opening laps on Sunday and the remainder of Stage 1 on Monday, it looked as though Denny Hamlin was the class of the field as he led early and often. And coming off pit road under caution after Stage 1, Hamlin made it off pit road first to keep the lead -- just as the left front wheel came off his car and zipped past him at the exit of pit road. Hamlin was set well back in the field and never regained the lead, making it up to fourth before he was collected in a crash with Cody Ware.
Then, just as Kyle Busch and Alex Bowman came to pit road from the top two spots for green flag pit stops, AJ Allmendinger had his right front wheel come off as he exited pit road. The ensuing caution trapped the two frontrunners a lap down, forcing them to take a wave around to get back on the lead lap and try to work their way back up from mid-pack. Bowman would eventually finish fifth and Busch seventh.
Hamlin and Allmendinger's wheel failures will mean a four-race suspension for crew chiefs Chris Gabehart and Matt Swiderski as well as two pit crew members from each team.
Run-in for Ross
As a driver who has long had an aggressive streak while having to fight his way into the Cup Series, Ross Chastain didn't make it to this point in his career without making a few enemies along the way. Now a Cup frontrunner, he may have just made another one after an incident racing for third with half a lap to go.
On the final lap, Martin Truex Jr. tried to set up a pass to the outside of Chastain as the two came off Turn 2. Chastain didn't leave much of a lane for Truex, leading to Truex running out of room, spinning, and crashing into the inside wall. Chastain went on to finish third, while Truex limped home in 12th.
Shortly afterwards, Truex and Chastain had what appeared to be a stern conversation on pit road that ended with Truex walking away without a handshake. Chastain, for his part, did his best to downplay the actual substance of the exchange.
"We were talking about where we were gonna go fishing next week," Chastain told Fox Sports. "I'm super proud of this effort. I thought we were a fifth-place car, and a couple of guys had misfortune with the caution coming out, and that cycled us to the lead. Pit crew was incredible today. They were just picking up spots every stop and got us the lead, and I'm racing with champions and I got beat."
Coming off of his victory at Talladega, Chastain led four times for a total of 86 laps, the second most on the day to Kyle Busch's 103. Truex, meanwhile, led twice for five laps.
Stellar Stenhouse
Entering Dover, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. hadn't just not had a single top 10 finish since Fontana in February, he hadn't finished any better than 21st since Las Vegas, and he had no finishes better than 27th since that point. But Monday, Stenhouse was able to completely change the tone of his season with his best run in over a year.
Stenhouse crept into the top five in the second half of the race, and then passed Ross Chastain for second on the final restart before settling in that spot on the final run. Stenhouse's runner-up finish marked his best run of 2022 by far, and is his first top five finish since another second at Bristol Dirt in 2021.
"We needed it bad," Stenhouse told reporters after the race. "We've had good racecars and better racecars than I feel like what we've shown. It feels like all of our fast races we've had issues as far as getting crashed at the speedways, or we've had some engine issues. But all in all, it was a solid day to put this all together."
Stenhouse's second place is his third runner-up finish since his last win at Daytona in 2017, and all three have come in the past three seasons since he joined JTG Daugherty Racing in 2020.
From the finishing order
- Chase Elliott's 14th career Cup Series win ties him on the all-time wins list with Daytona 500 champion Leeroy Yarborough as well as Dick Hutcherson. The next driver for Elliott to catch on the all-time wins list is Ernie Irvan, who had 15 career victories.
- This weekend in Dover was arguably one of the strongest that Chris Buescher has ever had in his Cup career. After winning his first career pole, Buescher ran in the top 10 throughout the day and ended up eighth, his second top 10 finish of the season.
- With a 10th place run, Erik Jones has now scored consecutive top 10 finishes for the first time since back-to-back top 10s at Talladega and the Charlotte Roval in the fall of 2020. With two more top 10s, Jones will have as many top 10 finishes in the first half of 2022 as he did in all of 2021.
- After taking two tires and then staying out to gain track position, Justin Haley ended up leading 19 laps on Monday after entering the day having led six his entire Cup career. Haley ended up 11th, matching his best finish of the season and scoring his second top 12 finish in a row.
- Despite issues at Martinsville and Talladega that took him out of chances at good finishes, it looks like Cole Custer's luck might be starting to turn. Custer finished 15th, marking his second top 15 finish in the last three races.
- Harrison Burton was the highest-finishing rookie in 24th, earning a top 10 in Stage 2 and keeping his nose clean as fellow rookies Todd Gilliland and Austin Cindric were both caught up in accidents.
Next race
The NASCAR Cup Series goes back in time for Throwback Weekend and its first trip of the season to the legendary Darlington Raceway for the Goodyear 400 on Mother's Day at 3:30 p.m. ET. Television coverage will be on FS1.
