How Denny Hamlin saved fuel to win at Michigan

William Byron on Sunday looked like he was going to win at Michigan International Speedway for the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career. Of course, it’s hard to win when your fuel tank is empty.

Despite leading 98 of 200 laps, Byron lost the lead to Denny Hamlin with just four laps remaining when his attempt to conserve fuel backfired. As Byron ultimately pitted on the final lap, Hamlin had just enough Sunoco gas in his car to squeeze it across the finish line to win the FireKeepers Casino 400.

Hamlin qualified third, but was an afterthought as he ran well albeit within Byron’s shadow. A poor pit stop prior to what would be the final green flag on Lap 152 made him resign himself to his fate as he restarted 12th, and damage to the right side of his car led to poor handling.

Even with the circumstances, the 49-lap run without a caution seemed to work in his favour. While the race had started with a long green-flag stretch as well, that was when everyone had full tanks. This time, many of the leaders had to play it safe to conserve as much fuel as they could.

While Hamlin was not going to just pray those in front of him would have to pit, things seemed to fall that way. As he picked off leader after leader, he eventually found himself tailing Byron.

“I never will assume someone’s going to run out,” Hamlin started. “I always am going to assume when I get there to challenge for the lead, they’re going to go 100%. I think that was the case. They told me over the radio, ‘You got to go, got to hold the lead. We run out, we run out.’ That’s the right strategy to do, which in turn made it more gratifying to me to pass him when he was going all out.

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“It is a balance, but I always feel like at the time I had the upper hand on him with the car, the lines that I was able to run versus the lines he was able to run. I saw some vulnerabilities with his car running on his bumper for ten laps. I was able to pick the car apart and capitalise on the one spot of the track that I thought I could get him.”

With five laps left, Hamlin made his move as he and Byron entered Turn 2. Hamlin dove to the inside, using the side-draft to get Byron loose and pull up. The two cars ran side by side on the backstretch as Byron tried to hold the position, but Hamlin ultimately got by him.

Unable to catch up and with no caution in sight, Byron could only watch helplessly as the #11 pulled away before pitting to ensure he’d reach the finish himself. Byron would finish 28th.

Hamlin scored his third win of 2025 after Martinsville and Darlington, the 57th of his career, and his third at Michigan. He had not won at the two-mile oval since 2011.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Hamlin described his battle with Byron. “We’re going to the corner, you see us swerving, all this other stuff. We’re trying to predict who is going to be where. It’s just so interesting.

“In the Xfinity (Series) car, I drive up straight behind him, get him loose, get him out of the way. With these cars, the advantage is all the leaders. It’s tremendously hard as the second-place guy to surprise someone entering a corner. I was able to drive in deep enough and attack that left rear headlight to get him shoved up out of the groove. Next thing you know, we’re racing.

“I was just going all out, but I wasn’t pushing it to the sense where as soon as I got to him I gave it all I had. I knew I had enough time to get a run, see what he had, find out his strengths versus my strengths, what part of the track.

“It takes an entire lap. If I choose to get him into turn one, I’ve got to start planning that attack one full lap ahead of time. It’s a crazy game. You’re playing chess out there. Everyone is doing it.”

RFK “disappointed” but pleased with triple top 10

After Byron pitted on the final, Chris Buescher inherited the runner-up spot to secure his second top five of 2025 (he also placed fifth at Phoenix). He had led 13 laps en route to the Stage 1 win.

While he wouldn’t be too upset about such a good finish, Buescher was candid about being “disappointed I didn’t get it done. It’s on me. I had a couple different decisions I would love to go back and make and ultimately should have had us ahead of the #11. We were faster on the day and I didn’t do a good enough job.”

Most of his logic comes from a slower pit stop he had early on when the team opted to add more fuel, which put him further back than usual. From there, he got stuck behind the leaders on the ensuing restart and lost plenty of ground. While he was able to claw his way back through the field, he felt those two moments—especially his restart gaffes—were enough to keep the win away from him.

Still, given he only had a single top ten in his last six races entering Michigan and sits 12th in points, he’ll take what he could get.

“We certainly need a little bit of good luck or fortune on our side,” Buescher continued. “This is a day where we kind of made our own. We were really fast and worked hard to be there and just didn’t have any bad luck, so that put us with a shot to win.

“After the last handful of weeks with having speed in the first stage and qualifying and not being able to get the race finish that was certainly big, but it’s frustrating to be that close and to know that we had a car that was capable of winning. I just needed to do a better job.”

If it made the mood better, at least he could revel in an otherwise solid finish with his teammates. All three RFK Racing drivers placed in the top ten, a feat that has not been achieved since the 2016 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona when they were Roush Fenway Racing: Trevor Bayne was third ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s fourth and Greg Biffle’s eighth.

Sunday’s race was the first time this happened outside of a superspeedway since the 2014 Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol, where Stenhouse was sixth followed by Carl Edwards in seventh and Biffle in tenth.

Ryan Preece finished ninth for his sixth top ten of the season. Curiously, it was also the third time he placed ninth in 2025 after Homestead and Charlotte, the latter just two weeks prior to Michigan.

Team owner Brad Keselowski was surely relieved with his tenth-place effort, especially after a very long day in an even longer season. Despite qualifying 27th, he felt he had a “top two or three car” that was set back by mistakes on pit road.

“I’m really disappointed,” Keselowski opined. “We kind of crushed ourselves on pit road with the speeding penalty and then having to go around the #45 (Tyler Reddick) and the #71 (Michael McDowell). Every time we pitted we would lose a lot of spots. It wasn’t the pit crew’s fault, we just needed a better pit stall. I felt I was way slow, so getting called fast didn’t really add up.”

Regardless, he wasn’t going to complain about his second top ten of the season, following a fifth at Charlotte. Unlike Buescher and Preece, both of whom are currently in contention to make the playoffs on points alone, Keselowski sits a career-worst 32nd in the standings, the fifth lowest among full-time drivers.

“We had the speed to do a lot more than we did today and I’m disappointed to not get that. Still, we’re reasonably happy with a top ten,” he concluded.

NASCAR 2025 FireKeepers Casino 400 – Results