NASCAR Cup Series 2026: Martinsville Speedway | EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | Motorsports on NBC

Denny Hamlin, William Byron, last year's two race winners here. Toyota Chevy on the front row. Josh Berry in a Ford right behind them. 37 strong. They address themselves to the starting line, and we're racing in Martinsville. Byron pulls away from Josh Berry, so they'll be single file for the first four spots. Cendric on the outside. Yeah, and Denny Hamlin, you heard him talk about wanting to control the pace. The biggest thing that he wants to do is try to take care of those rear tires, as you see Austin Cendric pull down the racetrack right there. You're going to see that all day, guys trying to pull down the racetrack to fill a hole and sometimes block, and sometimes that's when things don't work out and somebody shoves the other guy out of the way. Denny Hamlin's getting frustrated right here with John Hunter Niemicek. It seems like he's going to get him checking up off the corner. Ricky Stenhouse trying to get back on the lead lap there, and more traffic inside. That is for the lead. That is William Byron. That's not traffic. That's the new leader. He was frustrated for a reason. He couldn't get around Niemicek and open the door up for Byron to slip by them both. That's the thing that I was never able to do here. Denny Hamlin's always been able to move around the racetrack, make that corner shape a little bit different, as you see him right next to the bumper. He can just maneuver around, and I saw this, and that's why when I talked to him, I knew that the confidence was there. Much like when we talked about him after Vegas. I vividly remember him doing an interview and saying, these guys are in trouble. My car is lights out, and it is that way again. He can just go wherever he wants to. Hamlin wants to lead back and gets it. Next car ahead is Kyle Busch. I think it was back there racing hard. You see the leader, Denny Hamlin. Now watch this chain reaction. See Niemicek up here in the 42. Seven gets into him. 42 gets into the 51. Around he goes. Boom, boom, boom, boom. That's what happens when that leader is in the mirror, and you start to get yourself in a situation where you're close to the end of the stage, see Denny take a quick action right there, and all those guys in front of him stack up, and 51 car spits out the other side. So Hamlin will get his first stage win of the season. And Preece will get that tenth and final spot, one stage point. Thanks, Chris. Trouble on pit stops. Ryan Preece, slow stop, 13 seconds, dropped from tenth to 15th. Let's see. Two fast exiting for Ricky Stenhouse, and a lost wheel for that blue and white car. Kyle Busch's day has gone from bad to worse. Golly, that tire flipping down pit road like that is so dangerous. Luckily, it hit the wall right there. Very dangerous. Well, that's why we have those rules, too. Bounced off the wall, rolled back out and got punted. That's why it's so important to try to hold these guys accountable with rules and things like that. And those tires getting away. Yeah, and he never even tried to check up. I mean, he had to see it. He just said, My day's not going very good. Don't really care about that tire. I'm gonna go ahead and floor it and knock it out of the way and is what it is. Stage two. Here we go. This will take us to lap one. Eighty. Well, it looks just like the start of the race. Mike, save two guys on the front row, kept themselves in that track position throughout those first eighty laps. A little stronger than outside, though, Kevin. Keep an eye on it. Yeah. And in that situation right there, sometimes it's better to not fight because now it's open the door for exactly four card of Ty Gibbs to get up there and try to take that second spot away from William Byron. You don't think a kid's hungry, do you? Cars fast has been all weekend long. Could it be the first one? Make some good ground. We see some contact. Three wide right there. Big squeeze. They're left Chastain on the outside, looking in the big block Chastain. I wouldn't block that guy. That's exactly right. And around goes the four of Noah Gregson off the front of A. J. Allmendinger. I think Noah's kind of an innocent bystander to that. Well, Noah kind of went up the racetrack and Allmendinger was was already there and just kind of drove over the front. But I think, like you say, the cars in front of them checked up. It started with this Chastain way to the left for a big block. Kind of put him. See, they come up the racetrack. He tried to check up and give him room and got run over from behind. Yeah. And, you know, we know that Ryan Blaney's car is better than the cars that he's racing around right now. But you see him show that ninety seven car up the racetrack right there. Not happy about it. Clint gave him a door down the front straightaway. Now, if you're Ryan Blaney, you don't want to get retaliated on. So you try to fill that hole and let Josh Berry get in there. Not going to be able to do that right there. Final lap in this stage. And it has been all Denny Hamlin for the first two stages of this race so far dominant. He's got pressure coming. Is this where you have to start thinking about keeping up with the racetrack, Kevin? Now, a couple of drivers had trouble, Larry, on their pit stops. Yeah. William Byron, you're going to see him come in. There's going to be issues when they get to the left side. They didn't get the left side up and he couldn't get the left front off. That was a sixteen one goes from fifth to thirteenth. Ty Gibbs as well. He only lost one spot. Someone else that lost several spots. Went from seventh to fifteenth. Pit road not good for a lot of them that stop, Mike. We've seen it so many times this year. Meanwhile, the best pit crew in the sport, and that is Christopher Bells. They went from twelfth to eighth on their stop. Green flag. And Denny Hamlin takes off. Yeah. And if I'm Joey Logano right here, I'm going to do anything I can to put myself somewhere close to the back bumper of that eleven. And I think if you can, you can get him up out of the groove and look out, try to do something to put yourself in the middle of those Gibbs cars. That's what you got to do. So start of the third stage. I know there's two hundred and six laps left to go, but you can't just let Denny sit out there and control this thing. If you have any chance to to to mix that up, we're going on the outside of Barry, their priests again trying to move up on the outside. I just heard you mention Larson. What a great move by Cliff Daniels to put tires on that car, enable them to make some track position. Make some. Hey, made an adjustment on their car, and now we're established back up front. Larson came up to ninth at the end of the stage and then picked up two spots on Pit Road. Very in trouble. Locked the brakes up. It's not over yet. And that's not what you want to hear where you want to be right there with with Josh Barry. A little mistake right there. Put him in a bad spot. Still impressed with S.P.G. Battling himself right there at the tail end of that top ten. But that would be considered a good day, in my opinion, for that ninety seven car. William Byron just went by, put himself back up into ninth and for the first time today, all three of the full time Hendrick drivers are in the top ten. The good news is, is we're not bad. Yeah, right. And a better news is, is we can get better. We know we can. Oh, right. To each other. Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson. They are full contact every time they're around each other. Chase. You're going to go ahead, guys. Open the door up for me. He's going to let him back in. I think Bell kind of employed the three tap rule. One to let you know I'm there to let you know I need by and three. I'm coming through. Well, he definitely came on through right there. Well, there's one. Got him up the track. Heating up here, guys. Down in the bottom. Blaney finally looking to the outside of Gibbs. Can he get the job done? Oh, he's there. Clint. This is for second. Well, we saw this earlier on that long run, that second groove that Josh Berry moved up and he's going to get it and started making some speed in. You're right. Ryan Blaney makes it happen in that second groove right there. Here we got Chase Elliott on pit road right now. This could be a strategy of maybe even splitting this final stage in thirds. I heard some guys talking about that. If you were in big trouble, well, that's a lot of time to spend on pit road under green if you have to do it twice. But the window is open now to make it to the end. Chase Elliott was the first to pit at lap 261. He cycles through to the lead. Then Shane Van Gisbergen, who pitted at lap 268, and then Denny Hamlin, who didn't pit until lap 290. And here comes Hamlin for the lead. And right now, Ross Chastain doesn't want to let Denny Hamlin by either because he doesn't want to be a lap down. So important for that one car of Ross Chastain and the 17 car of Chris Buescher to be able to keep themselves in front of that 11 car as long as possible. Now the nine needs to try to follow suit. Let the 11 make the hole and you go with him. That's a tall order, but that's what you're trying to do. Now. He was on pit road. Chastain. Just 26. Oh, Hamlin. He missed the gear. Boy, that happened in yesterday's race. That was the opportunity. Work hard here. Yeah. And I think as fast as that Hamlin car is, you've got to work hard with not only your race car, but I wouldn't. Oh, we got trouble. a huge break with the caution coming out and the lead stains, leaving a little room there to chase Briscoe as he enters the corner. That's one. I'm telling you what, there's got to be more to that story because that right there took about a quarter of the field. Well, I mean, bubble Wallace just drove flat through the 77 cars. So I would assume that there was something that happened before that for that type of aggression. Yeah, it was definitely on purpose. He was mad. Yeah. I mean, I see him pull down the block right there, but you see him just throttle up right there and just drive through it. That wasn't a big enough block to warrant that, though. There was. There's more to that story. I agree with you. Chris Buescher will get the free pass from bubble Wallace coming straight straight through the middle. We're back to green and green. Good push from Blaney on that outside Elliott trying to make quick work of Chastain on them old tires. This could be the opportunity he's looking for. Yeah, and we've seen that nine car be pretty good on that top lane about Blaney, and that's what you want. You want to put Denny Hamlin as far back as possible. The scenarios just haven't worked his way. Nine car got the lead with the caution. Now you got the one car in front of that eleven kind of pinning him in. So Blaney and Elliott, like you said, Clinton need to take advantage of this situation and try to put him back to third. Well, that's going to take a little give on the part of one or the other. And all I see is take. Here's the nine. He's going to cement the lead right here, going off into the corner. But room for the one on the bottom came back after him. Elliott, though, had to drive off to cement the lead that puts Hamlin third and Blaney on the outside. Gosh, I think back to these races in this race. Hamlin just put Blaney in the wall. Pretty hard to let's go back and see what happened between Hamlin and Blaney. You called it. My camera put him in a lot. You could see him. It gets tight here and moves up the racetrack. Not clear. But he's in trouble. You could see his wheels turned inside the car, kept moving up the racetrack. No real estate. And got Blaney right in the wall. You see the contact. That's right. Look at it. Hooked his right rear. And he's trying to stay out of it. But that's a massive hit for Blaney. Yeah. I wouldn't surprise me if that car is not has a tolling. Watch the flames right here out of the 11 car with the 11. Yeah. You see the flames out of the 11. But when those cars you're going to see him make contact just past the center of the corner right here. And that's going to hang that Denny Hamlin card to the right. And when they get connected like that, it is so hard to get those cars to come apart. This is exactly what I need to Chevrolet's in between me. Get clear of him. Elliott underneath. Hamlin comes in low. He's within two car lengths. Elliott squirts away. Yeah, that pretty much put Elliott in a position to where unless something crazy happens, he's got the gap that he needs now. Bring that baby around here. He's got a gap in front of him, and he's the 48 behind going up high and out of the way. White flag waves. One lap to go. Sponsored by Credit One Bank. And as they do every year, Hendrick Motorsports finds a way to put themselves in a position to win. And today it was Alan Gustafson with that pit stop. That would be thirty one heartbreaker. Two hundred ninety two laps led by Denny Hamlin off turn for Chase. Elliott gets his second career win, twenty second career win, rather winning for Alan Gustafson and Rick Hendrick and Chevrolet, breaking a six race drought to start the season. They short pitted from ninth place and a debris caution for a brake rotor at lap three twelve allowed him to pit from second along with the other lead lap cars and get back on the same tire strategy as the rest of the leaders.