2023 NASCAR HighPoint 400 at Pocono – Full Race Results

Denny Hamlin has some history at Pocono Raceway, and not all of it is good. Today he notched his seventh victory at the Tricky Triangle but it came with a lot of controversy. Hamlin made two aggressive moves that took out two Hendrick Motorsports cars late in the race. The second one came on the penultimate restart when he nudged race leader Kyle Larson into the outside wall, a similar move he used on Ross Chastain last year. He went on to win that race but was later disqualified after inspection.

Should today's victory stand, it will be the second win of the season for Hamlin, and the 50th of his Cup career. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was showered in boos from the crowd after the race, but he welcomed all of the negativity. "Larson missed the corner first and evidently he didn't have his right-side tires clean. You have an option in those positions. It's either hold it wide-open and hit the fence or lift and race it out. That was a choice they made. I didn't hit either one of them. I love it. I thought we had the best car, honestly. The strategy worked out well. I'm just really happy that we're finally winning these races that we should win."

Larson was unable to make up the ground he lost, and finished 20th. He took a swipe at Hamlin's car under caution, to let him know just how upset he was with the move. "Yeah, I’m mad, and I should be. I deserved to be raced with respect, but he knew that was going to be his only opportunity to beat me with how dirty it was. I got used up. It’s just unfortunate. I feel like we’ve had a handful of run-ins. I’ve never had to reach out to apologize. He’s always been the one that’s reached out to me. I should have at least been top two, but I finished 20th."

Tyler Reddick finished runner-up but wanted a shot at his team owner. It looked as though he might get it but NASCAR officials held off on throwing the caution flag for a single-car spin until after Hamlin took the white flag, which effectively ended the race. Hamlin's teammate Martin Truex Jr finished 3rd, keeping his positive momentum rolling. Kevin Harvick finished 4th in his final start at Pocono and rookie Ty Gibbs rounded out the top-five. Christopher Bell finished 6th, in what was a brilliant day for Toyota and the JGR organization.

The race was filled with caution flags for multiple crashes, but none bigger than the incident between Austin Dillon and Reddick. Dillon had already crashed earlier in the race, then did not appear to see Reddick below him as they entered the turn. The Richard Childress Racing driver made heavy contact with the outside wall, then proceeded to throw his helmet at Reddick's car after exiting his vehicle.

The first accident involved Joey Logano, who had just won the opening stage of the race. He got bumped on the Stage 2 start and got into the wall. Daniel Suarez was also collected in the crash, which ended the day for both drivers. It was a pivotal blow to Suarez's Playoff aspirations.

Larson won Stage 2 of the race but was spun by Bell on a restart while leading. Bell was running in 11th position earlier in the race when he spun himself just before the end of Stage 2. Chase Briscoe went for a spin, Alex Bowman crashed after close contact with Hamlin with 12 laps remaining and Justin Haley had a hard crash with eight laps remaining. Ryan Blaney's day ended early with a drive train issue on pit road.

Previous Pocono winners

2022: Chase Elliott

2021: Kyle Busch

2021: Alex Bowman

2020: Denny Hamlin

2020: Kevin Harvick

2019: Denny Hamlin

2019: Kyle Busch

2018: Kyle Busch

2018: Martin Truex Jr

2017: Kyle Busch

2017: Ryan Blaney

2016: Chris Buescher

2016: Kurt Busch

2015: Matt Kenseth

2015: Martin Truex Jr

2014: Dale Earnhardt Jr

2014: Dale Earnhardt Jr

2013: Kasey Kahne

2013: Jimmie Johnson

2012: Jeff Gordon

2012: Joey Logano

2011: Brad Keselowski

2011: Jeff Gordon

2010: Greg Biffle

2010: Denny Hamlin

2009: Denny Hamlin

2009: Tony Stewart