NASCAR Cup Series: Denny Hamlin wins 2019 O’Reilly Auto Parts 500

Denny Hamlin earned his second victory of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season by winning the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin overcame two pit road penalties during the seventh race of the 36-race 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, at Texas Motor Speedway to earn his second victory of the season.

Hamlin, who started the 334-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) high-banked Texas Motor Speedway oval in Fort Worth, Texas in sixth place in his #11 Toyota, won it by seconds over Stewart-Haas Racing’s Clint Bowyer, who finished in a season-high second in his #14 Ford.

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Daniel Suarez finished in a season-high third place in his #41 Ford while Joe Gibbs Racing’s Erik Jones finished in fourth in his #20 Toyota.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson, who started the race from the pole position, finished in fifth place in his #48 Chevrolet. This fifth place finish is his first top six finish since he finished in fifth in last year’s May race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

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Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron tied his career-high Cup Series finish by finishing in sixth place in his #24 Chevrolet. He also finished in sixth in last year’s July race at Pocono Raceway.

Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Aric Almirola and Kevin Harvick, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch rounded out the top 10 by finishing in seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th place in their #10 Ford, #4 Ford, #1 Chevrolet and #18 Toyota, respectively.

This race featured a season-high 26 lead changes among  a season-high 13 different drivers. Aside of Hamlin, who led 45 laps, 12 other drivers led at least one lap of the race.

Those drivers were Bowyer, Suarez, Jones, Johnson, Byron, Almirola, Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon and Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.

Busch led more laps than anybody else in the field with 66 laps led. Logano won stage one and Hamlin won stage two, meaning that the stage two winner has won each of the last five Cup Series races.

Blaney and Busch both appeared to have great chances to win the race as the laps wound down, but Blaney was unable to finish due to engine issues and Busch dropped out of the lead and never recovered after getting loose off of turn two and having to make an unexpected pit stop.

This race featured three incident-related caution flag periods and the usual two caution flag periods for the endings of stages one and two. These five caution flag periods lasted for a total of 29 laps.

Here are the full race results of the 2019 O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Race Results
1st – Denny Hamlin
2nd – Clint Bowyer
3rd – Daniel Suarez
4th – Erik Jones
5th – Jimmie Johnson
6th – William Byron
7th – Aric Almirola
8th – Kevin Harvick
9th – Kurt Busch
10th – Kyle Busch
11th – Ryan Newman
12th – Martin Truex Jr.
13th – Chase Elliott
14th – Austin Dillon
15th – Michael McDowell
16th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17th – Joey Logano
18th – Alex Bowman
19th – Paul Menard
20th – Chris Buescher
21st – Ty Dillon
22nd – Ryan Preece
23rd – Darrell Wallace Jr.
24th – Matt Tifft
25th – David Ragan
26th – Matt DiBenedetto
27th – Parker Kligerman
28th – Corey LaJoie
29th – Ross Chastain
30th – Landon Cassill
31st – B.J. McLeod
32nd – Garrett Smithley
33rd – Daniel Hemric
34th – Reed Sorenson
35th – Bayley Currey
36th – Brad Keselowski
37th – Ryan Blaney
38th – Timmy Hill
39th – Kyle Larson

The next race on the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the season’s eighth race, the Food City 500. This race is scheduled to take place at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 7, and it is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 from Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee.