Alex Bowman placed the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet in victory lane for the first time in nearly four years on Sunday afternoon at Richmond Raceway. This was his third NASCAR Cup Series victory and his first of the 2021 season.
“We just had a great race car; it’s as simple as that. Greg Ives (Crew Chief) and all the guys, they have to deal with me at short tracks and I drive these places really wrong. We kind of instead of trying to make me figure it out, we went to work on getting the race car where I needed it to be. Greg has done such an amazing job at making that happen.” Bowman said.
It was a power play in the final laps for the No. 48 Chevrolet driver and you can make your own at powerplay sports betting and capture the ultimate adrenaline rush into sports betting.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin dominated the race by leading 207 of the 400 laps and lost again for the third race in a row. Hamlin finished second, but it was another late-race pass that cost him another race win.
“We just didn’t take off quite as good there at the end. I tried to warm it up and do everything that I could – just the 48 (Alex Bowman) had a little more on those last few laps and I couldn’t hold the bottom. Once he got the position, we were just shut down there.” Hamlin said.
Last week at Martinsville Speedway, Hamlin led 276 laps and lost the lead to Martin Truex Jr. with 16 laps to go in the race. “That was a lot of fun there racing at the end with Denny (Hamlin). We raced clean and we were able to come out on top.” Truex Jr. said.
“We had a really fast car for 20 laps or so, and then it would just kind of go away. Fortunate for us, we had a great day and had ourselves a shot at it, but just wasn’t quite good enough.” Hamlin said at Martinsville.
The frustration is mounting for the driver of the No. 11 Toyota as the series heads into the unpredictable 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama.
“There’s frustration, for sure. But it doesn’t change my attitude or work ethic. I’m going to work just as hard to win next week and the week after that. You’re a competitor, you want to win.” Hamlin said after Richmond.
Hamlin has two wins, nine top-5’s, 13 top-10’s, an average finish of 16.7, and a driver rating of 83.6 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Brad Keselowski might be a powerplay for your portfolio. Keselowski leads all active NCS drivers in victories at Talladega Superspeedway with five (2009, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017).
Jennifer Jo Cobb was going to make her Cup Series debut at Talladega, but NASCAR says that she didn’t meet the sanctioning body’s approval criteria for the race.
The GEICO 500 is scheduled for Sunday, April 25 at 2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
