Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin earns fourth win of season with Homestead victory
Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin celebrates his win in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
Related stories: Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson wins record-setting fourth consecutive Cup title
Juan Pablo Montoya earns two-lap penalty for aggressive driving after contact with Tony Stewart
Jeff Burton leads strong effort by Richard Childress Racing with runner-up finish
Penske Racing's Kurt Busch fourth in final race with crew chief Pat Tryson
Mark Martin finds no frustration in finishing second to teammate Jimmie Johnson
Jeff Gordon finishes third in standings with sixth-place finish that 'wasn't real pretty'
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Jimmie Johnson wrote another chapter in NASCAR’s record book and Denny Hamlin came away as the season’s final race winner Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Johnson won his fourth consecutive NASCAR Cup championship, a feat unmatched in the 61-year history of the sport, with a fifth-place finish in the season-ending Ford 400. The Hendrick Motorsports driver became just the fourth to win four or more titles.
The total ties him for third on the all-time list with teammate Jeff Gordon, and leaves him just three shy of the record seven won by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
“Thank you so much; how about some history!” Johnson yelled to his crew over his team’s radio as he crossed the finish line.
Johnson’s finish left him with a 141-point lead over fellow Hendrick driver Mark Martin, who wound up 12th.
“It takes a little while to sink in, but the truth is, to do something never done … is so awesome,” Johnson said. “This is such a team sport. I don’t even know where to start.”
Martin, second in the point battle for the fifth time, said he “probably picked the hardest one ever to try to win.
“But my race team was so awesome,” Martin said. “I just want to thank the fans and the competitors. Their support means more to me than that trophy would, I swear.”
The outcome of the season’s final race came down to a final pit stop under caution with 50 laps remaining. Kurt Busch, whose Penske Racing team gambled with a two-tire stop, won the race off pit road while Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing) came out second, followed by Hamlin (JGR) and Jeff Burton (Richard Childress Racing).
The move backfired, however, as the Penske Racing driver was unable to maintain his track position, and Hamlin took the lead with 45 laps remaining after a brief side-by-side battle with his JGR teammate.
Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota pulled away from the field, and he crossed the finish line with a 2.632-second lead over runner-up Burton.
Burton had made his way around Kyle Busch with 14 laps remaining, but was some two seconds behind Hamlin at that point.
Trailing Hamlin and Burton in the top five were Kevin Harvick (RCR), Kurt Busch and Johnson.
“Those guys have been the standard and haven’t made mistakes,” Hamlin said of Johnson’s team. “I think we’re showing we have that strength, but those guys have just done a phenomenal job.”
Hamlin led 71 laps in capturing his fourth win of the season and the eighth of his career.
Burton moved to the front with less than 70 laps remaining, and wound up leading 19 laps. It was his second consecutive runner-up finish and fourth top-10 in four races with new crew chief Todd Berrier.
“We’ve been working really hard and Todd has done an incredible job,” Burton said. “Two seconds in our first four outings. We’re not where we need to be or we’d be where Denny is (in the winners’ circle). What we’ve got to do is run hard and keep improving.”
Hamlin took the lead for the first time in the pits on lap 158, beating Kurt Busch off pit road. Busch, Burton, Kasey Kahne and Gordon were second through fifth when the green reappeared.
After working his way through traffic because of an earlier pit stop, Johnson quickly moved back into the top 10, settling into the eighth spot after 167 laps.
Harvick had led 56 laps before Kurt Busch made a move to the outside to wrestle the lead away at the start/finish line on lap 134.
Fans were treated to a second consecutive day of retaliation when Juan Pablo Montoya collected the wall after getting forced low on the track by Tony Stewart on lap 116, sending the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver to the garage for repairs.
“I pushed him and the [expletive] wrecked us,” an irate Montoya told crew chief Brian Pattie on the radio. “They [parked] Denny [Hamlin] yesterday, they should park the [expletive]. What an [expletive]!”
After repairs were made, Montoya returned to the track, tracked down Stewart, and spun the owner/driver in Turn 4.
“Well, he got us,” Stewart told his crew.
As a result of the contact, NASCAR penalized Montoya two laps.
Harvick moved to the front for the first time on a lap-86 restart, when he and teammate Clint Bowyer shot past Stewart.
Johnson, the pole winner, had given up the lead briefly during the race’s first cycle of green-flag pit stops on lap 51. Once the field had completed its stops, the Hendrick was fifth, trailing Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Montoya and Martin.
Marcos Ambrose was the first to mount a charge on Johnson, running down the race leader to take the point on lap 9. But Ambrose’s fortunes in the JTG Daugherty Toyota were short-lived as a tire problem sent him to pit road under green just a few laps later, putting him one lap down. Shortly after that trouble, an electrical problem forced the team to the garage for repairs.
“I switched batteries, I switched boxes,” Ambrose told his crew before pitting. “It happened all of a sudden. It’s got to be electrical.”
Returning to the race later, Ambrose brought out the day’s fist caution when he spun coming out of Turn 4 on lap 81, and brought out yet another caution when he made contact with the wall on lap 109.
Hamlin averaged 126.986 mph in winning the season’s final race. There were seven cautions for 31 laps and 18 lead changes among 10 drivers.
