AVONDALE, Ariz. — Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson mounted solid challenges in their bid to unseat Christopher Bell from his win-streak throne Sunday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway. Neither ultimately did, but both drivers managed to find positives in a highly competitive back-and-forth finish — one of the track’s closest ever.
Hamlin placed second to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate in Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500, his No. 11 Toyota taking the checkered flag just 0.049 seconds behind Bell’s No. 20 for his best finish of the season. Another half car-length and 0.048 seconds behind Hamlin was Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in third place, equaling his best 2025 result.
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Hamlin’s late-race possibilities may have been the most precarious, giving team owner Coach Joe Gibbs a queasy feeling as two team cars battled in close quarters for the victory. Hamlin held close to Bell during the deciding two-lap, green-flag sprint to the finish, and his outside-lane presence was aided by a pair of well-timed pushes from Larson. But both JGR cars drifted up the track in the final corner, and the inside groove’s advantage ultimately favored Bell at the stripe.
“It’s so hard, especially (racing) a teammate,” Hamlin said, “because I mean, we could come out of here looking like fools if we don’t win, one of the two of us, especially controlling the race on the last restart on the last lap. So it’s really, really hard. But, you know, it’s the first time I think I’ve raced Bell for a race win in that kind of scenario. So I just wish I was on the inside, not on the outside.”
Larson, who was also seeking his first victory of the season, benefited from a late-race pit stop that put him on more solid footing for the home stretch. His hopes for a bigger teammate tangle between Bell and Hamlin were never quite realized, and an avenue for him to pounce on the last lap closed.
“I’m happy with it, I guess,” said Larson, who was also a close third behind a victorious Bell at Atlanta two weeks earlier. “I think we got lucky for that final-ish caution before the final round of pit stops there because we were terrible, and then our pit crew did an amazing job there. I think I gained like five or six spots, but came out fourth and yeah, then our car was not bad there that last run. Then the final restart, I thought I did everything I could. I haven’t watched the replay back, but felt like being patient behind those guys gave ourselves the best shot to win.
“Was hoping that Bell would get into Denny some more and maybe get them choked up even more, and I could get to their inside somewhere off of (Turn) 2 or off of (Turn) 4 coming to the line. But it was a fun battle from my seat.”
WATCH: Hamlin: ‘He had to use me’ | Larson: ‘I made the correct decisions’
Though both drivers wound up on the short end, both Hamlin and Larson pulled a measure of encouragement from their performances. Hamlin was particularly pleased with the direction of Goodyear’s tire compounds for Sunday’s race, with a baseline “prime” tire and an even softer “option” tire introducing new degrees of strategy and tire management into the competition. He also savored his first top-five result of the season, topping his previous best of sixth place at Atlanta.
“It’s progress,” Hamlin said. “We never really got outside the top 10. If we did, it was because of a bad pit stop, but I’m really encouraged by this short-track tire that we’ve got, and certainly it is a game-changer as far as the races that it puts on. Hopefully we can just keep this thing on the car for the rest of the year, if we can. I mean, it’s just, it’s fantastic and it creates great racing.”
Larson’s takeaway was also tinged with optimism, in that he felt his Hendrick Motorsports team still has room for growth — especially at a track type that’s been a trouble spot at times for the four-car organization.
“I don’t want to come across harsh,” Larson said, “but I felt like we had a lot of hope in what we brought here this weekend, and there was definitely times of the race and the weekend where I thought I was better, but relative to the field, I feel like we were a little bit worse — which is good, it’s good to be that way. It’s good to not be exactly how you want to be, because it leaves a lot of room for improvement, and there’s a lot of smart people at Hendrick Motorsports that will dig down deep and try to figure some more things out.”