LONG POND, Pa. — Denny Hamlin returned to his best track on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar after one week off and netted a runner-up finish at Pocono Raceway.
After sitting out last week’s race in Mexico City as he and fiancée Jordan Fish welcomed the birth of their third child, Hamlin led 32 laps, won Stage 1 and was alongside teammate Chase Briscoe on the final restart. Ultimately, despite Briscoe’s late fuel savings and Hamlin’s heated pursuit, the No. 11 JGR driver was left to settle for a second-place finish.
Briscoe didn’t get as much fuel into his tank during his last pit stop and needed to conserve to the checkered flag. Hamlin believed he had the advantage but could not get alongside Briscoe to truly establish position for what would have been the winning pass.
“I tried the best I could to make runs at him,” said Hamlin, a seven-time winner at Pocono. “I’d back off, cool everything down, try to make another run, and as soon as I’d get within one or two car lengths, it would just heat the tires up and then I couldn’t make a move on him. Truthfully, I thought he’d run out of gas. But we just were the next best on our strategy, which I thought was the right strategy. We just got a little unlucky.”
Briscoe was leading Chris Buescher and Hamlin before the final round of green-flag pit stops began. Briscoe hit pit road at Lap 119 while Hamlin and crew chief Chris Gayle hit pit road one lap later with 40 laps remaining. Briscoe had a shorter pit stop — largely because Briscoe left the box earlier than his crew anticipated — and escaped with a three-second advantage over Hamlin, who leaped Buescher in the cycle. A caution came out at Lap 124, which bunched the field together again. But Briscoe prevailed when the green flag waved, clearing Hamlin for the lead by the time they reached Turn 1.
“I felt the restart certainly was not good,” Hamlin said. “He didn’t get a push, but then the person behind me didn’t push. That was a real defining moment to not have a chance to get around him because once you get off Turn 2 clear, you have to really mess up to lose the lead.”
A three-time winner already this season, Hamlin has been a dominant force in 2025. The No. 11 Toyota has finished third or better in six of Hamlin’s last 10 starts, leading laps in nine of those 10 as well. Hamlin exits Pocono third in the regular-season standings, only trailing the Hendrick Motorsports duo of William Byron and Kyle Larson.
“Every week, we’re battling for a win,” Hamlin said. “Things are going really, really good right now. I’m happy with the way our team’s performing. Everything’s clicking.”
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action Saturday night at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta), marking the first race of the inaugural In-Season Challenge at 7 p.m. ET on TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
The three races at Michigan International Speedway, Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and Pocono Raceway determined the seeding for NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge. Seeding is based on a driver’s best finish in the three races. The first tiebreaker is the next-best finish in the three races, followed by the third-best finish in the three races. If there’s still a tie after that, then season-long points standings after Pocono will determine who gets the better seed for the challenge opener on June 28 at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).
Here’s where we stand after the final seeding race at Pocono now that post-race inspection is complete:
Pocono race winner: Chase Briscoe held off Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin to win for the first time with the No. 19 team. It appeared Briscoe left too early on his final green-flag pit stop for him to get enough fuel in the tank to make it to the finish, but he did a great job of managing the fuel situation the rest of the way and got the victory. With the win, Briscoe moved up 10 spots in the seedings to No. 2, where he will face No. 31 seed Noah Gragson in the first round of the In-Season Tournament at EchoPark Speedway.
Who earned the top four seeds: Hamlin held onto the top seed on the strength of his Michigan victory and a second-place finish at Pocono. He will face No. 32 seed Ty Dillon in his first-round matchup. We already talked about Briscoe, the No. 2 seed, so let’s move on to No. 3, where we find RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher. He’s riding finishes of second (Michigan), fourth (Pocono) and 10th (Mexico City) into EchoPark, where he will face No. 30 Todd Gilliland in the first round. Christopher Bell rounds out the top four seeds, but he will need to bounce back from finishes of 16th (Michigan) and 17th (Pocono) in the seedings races in order to take care of No. 29 seed Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who’ll be a tough out on the superspeedway.
Most interesting matchup in the challenge:No. 16 Kyle Busch vs. No. 17 Brad Keselowski. Can it get any better? Two former champions, who had an infamous beef with each other way back when, face off in the first round on a superspeedway track. Keselowski’s prowess on superspeedways is historic with seven career wins, while Busch has three wins himself and was involved in one of the closest finishes ever at the track formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway when he lost by a whisker to Daniel Suárez. Grab your popcorn, sit back and enjoy tracking this matchup, with the winner possibly facing Hamlin in Round 2.
Who’s Up
Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Team Penske Ford: Blaney entered Pocono as the No. 23 seed, but his third-place finish Sunday vaulted him up to the No. 7 seed. His reward in the first round? Facing Carson Hocevar, who is a tough matchup on this track type. However, history is still on Blaney’s side because of his four career superspeedway wins.
Who’s Down
William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet: It’s odd to see the series standings leader in the bottom half of the bracket as the No. 18 seed, but he’s in a dry spell with finishes of 28th (Michigan) and 27th (Pocono) sandwiched around a ninth-place finish (Mexico City). Byron will face No. 15 seed Ryan Preece, who is closer than you might think in this matchup based on recent performance.
Chase Briscoe has earned a NASCAR Cup Series season-best four pole positions and led laps in eight races in his first season driving the famous No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, and finally – finally – on Sunday afternoon that hard work translated into his first trophy, edging his JGR teammate Denny Hamlin in The Great American Getaway 400 presented by VisitPA.com at Pocono Raceway.
It came down to the suspenseful very final laps, Briscoe having to save as much fuel as possible while maintaining the lead the last 34 laps with Pocono’s all-time winningest driver Hamlin and two-time Pocono winner, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, directly in his rearview mirror, pushing him lap after lap.
But Briscoe did it — perfectly executing throttle control to maintain the lead and not run his car out of gas — ultimately beating Hamlin across the line by .682-second to formally punch his win-and-in 2025 Playoff ticket. The 30-year-old Indiana-native led a race-best 72 of the 160 laps on the day and even had enough fuel for the well-deserved victory celebration.
“There was a lot [of pressure],” a smiling Briscoe conceded. “It was kind of weird. I wasn’t driving hard, so it’s not like I was on the ragged edge, but it was just so hard having a guy chasing you, especially the guy that’s the greatest of all time here, to be trying to save fuel and everything else.
“Just an amazing day for our race team,” he continued, “Really the first race we’ve executed all year long.”
Hamlin, a three-time winner this year, is returning to competition after missing last week’s Mexico City race to be home in North Carolina for the birth of his son, showed why he is a seven-time Pocono winner. His runner-up finish marks the 10th time he’s finished first or second at the unique 2.5-mile oval in 36 starts.
“It was definitely going to be difficult,” said Hamlin, who started on pole, won Stage 1 and led 32 laps. “The team did a great job and we were next best in line of our strategy, it just didn’t work out.”
“We’re really strong and not showing up with any weaknesses right now, really proud of the effort we put forth,” he continued. “Just love to get more wins, but still overall a good solid day for us, now we move on to the next series of races.”
Blaney, who earned his first career Cup Series victory at Pocono in 2017 and answered with a win last year, also had a great strategic day pay off with his third-place finish — especially impressive considering he started from the back of the grid after making adjustments on his car following qualifying. His rally came in a problematic cool-suit that forced him to run more than 100 laps without the device working correctly on the steamy, hot summer afternoon.
RFK Racing driver Chris Buescher, who also earned his first career Cup Series win at Pocono (2016), started his No. 17 Ford second and was among the day’s nine leaders — ultimately finishing fourth. Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott was fifth with back-to-back top-five finishes for the first time this year.
Briscoe’s victory – the third of his career – makes him the 11th driver to earn a position in the 16-driver Playoff field – the sixth different in just the last eight weeks.
“To finally deliver a win is such an awesome feeling. … such a big weight off my shoulders,” Briscoe said. “I’ve been telling my wife the last few weeks, I have to win, and so to come here and do it, it is a great day.”
Legacy Motor Club’s John Hunter Nemechek finished sixth, followed by Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, RFK’s Ryan Preece and RFK co-owner-driver Brad Keselowski. Team Penske’s Austin Cindric rounded out the top 10.
Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron started from the rear of the field after a qualifying accident, moved forward at one point, but ultimately finished 27th. He still leads the Cup Series standings by 54 points over his teammate Larson.
With nine races remaining to set the playoff field, Hendrick’s Alex Bowman now bumps down to the 16th-place position for that final points-only transfer position with a new season winner.
The Cup Series heads to EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) for a Saturday night affair and the start of the In-Season Challenge (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Team Penske’s Joey Logano is the defending race winner. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell won at Atlanta this February.
Note: Post-race inspection was completed without issue, confirming Briscoe as the winner. The Nos. 9 and 20 cars will be brought back to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for inspections.
Bubba Wallace’s hopes for returning to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for the first time since 2023 took a hit after wrecking out during Stage 2 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway.
After starting at the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments stemming from a mechanical failure in Saturday’s qualifying session, Wallace found himself trapped in the back half of the field for the first 50 laps.
On Lap 56, the right-front tire on the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota went down after losing brakes in Turn 2, sending Wallace’s car into the wall. Wallace was checked and released from the Infield Care Center.
“A lot softer than 2018,” Wallace said, referring to a wreck at Pocono then when he suffered a brake failure into Turn 1. “Keep bringing fast race cars. I appreciate the effort. No results to show for it. After practice, it was going to be embarrassing for the rest of the field, I thought. Never got to see it.”
Wallace’s 23XI teammate Riley Herbst suffered a similar fate on Lap 43 as the No. 35 Toyota had a tire go down and wrecked in Turn 1.
Wallace entered Sunday’s race 13th in the playoff standings — 57 points above the elimination line.
The start of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway was delayed due to inclement weather.
Rain soaked the Pocono Mountains early Sunday and persisted into the early afternoon, pushing the anticipated start of The Great American Getaway 400 (Prime Video, MRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio) back from a scheduled 2:20 p.m. ET green flag. After track-drying efforts, the race got underway at 4:31 p.m. ET.
Denny Hamlin, the all-time winningest driver at Pocono with seven Cup victories, earned the Busch Light Pole Award for the 160-lap, 400-mile contest. Chris Buescher, a Pocono winner in 2016, joined him on the front row.
Carson Hocevar started third ahead of John Hunter Nemechek and Cole Custer, who completed the top five in Saturday’s time-trial qualifying.
Editor’s note: Projections have been updated after Saturday practice and qualifying:
Shane van Gisbergen flipped the NASCAR Cup Series playoff picture last Sunday with his dominant win in Mexico City. However, don’t count on another first-time winner this weekend when the circuit shifts to Pocono Raceway on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
According to Racing Insights, the last 11 races in Long Pond, Pennsylvania have been won by drivers ranked sixth or better in the playoff standings, so let’s take a deeper look at who will be in the mix at the “Tricky Triangle.”
The winningest Cup driver in Pocono’s history, Denny Hamlin, is set to return after missing the Cup Series’ inaugural event at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez following the birth of his son.
He’ll restart his consecutive starts streak when he takes the green flag Sunday and will be one of the favorites to do so in grand fashion. Since 2022 at Pocono, Hamlin ranks first in speed, long runs and restarts. He’s also finished inside the top 15 in every race at Pocono dating back to 2018, except for the 2022 race, where he and former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch were disqualified after post-race inspection.
Still looking to add a second victory this season is William Byron. The two-time Daytona 500 winner holds a 67-point lead in the regular-season standings ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson. What’s going to make Byron a threat on Sunday is how the No. 24 driver has been able to earn and maintain track position all season long.
Byron has been the best of all Cup drivers this season in average start (9.3), average finish (10.4) and average running position (9.2). Pocono has been tricky for Byron, though, as he has just one top-10 finish in the last four races at the 2.5-mile track.
TYLER REDDICK: Still looking for his first win of 2025, the No. 45 23XI Racing driver could be in a spot to turn his season around. He’s finished runner-up in two of the last three Pocono races and has been top 10 in the last four.
CHASE ELLIOTT: The pride of Dawsonville, Georgia will be doing double duty this weekend as he dips into Xfinity Series action on Saturday. Elliott was awarded the Pocono win in 2022 after the previously mentioned DQs of Hamlin and Busch that year and owns consecutive top 10s in the last three races at the “Tricky Triangle.”
ERIK JONES: Legacy Motor Club has picked up the pace as summer kicks off this weekend, and the No. 43 Toyota driver has an underrated history at Pocono. Jones has finished top 10 in eight of his 13 Pocono starts, and his five top fives in Long Pond are tied for his most at any other track on the calendar (Darlington).
BUBBA WALLACE: Coming off top 10s at Nashville and Michigan, followed up by a gritty 12th-place result in Mexico, the No. 23 23XI team is heading in the right direction ahead of Pocono. Wallace has been impressively consistent at the 2.5-mile circuit with no finish worse than 11th in the last four events in Long Pond.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE GREAT AMERICAN GETAWAY 400
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula incorporates current track, track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to predict a projected winner and provide full race results. Updated on race day with practice and qualifying factored in.
LONG POND, Pa. — One week ago, Shane van Gisbergen’s victory in Mexico City vaulted him into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
In some ways, certainly, the victory was an upset for the driver who sits 30th in the points standings. But the reality is that the New Zealander affectionately known as SVG seemed destined to win at least one of the five road-course races on the regular-season schedule to propel him into the postseason.
Provisionally, that means 10 different drivers have locked themselves into the playoffs by virtue of their wins this year. Ten races remain in the hunt for one of the final spots in the 16-driver grid to determine this year’s championship contenders.
Entering The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe sits 14th in the projecred playoff standings, 39 points above the elimination line following van Gisbergen’s historic win. And now that van Gisbergen has claimed victory, Briscoe will be rooting for him at Chicago, Sonoma and Watkins Glen if Briscoe can’t win those himself, since multiple SVG wins wouldn’t eliminate another spot available to make the postseason on points.
“You knew that SVG was probably going to win one and (knock out) somebody that was going to get in on points,” Briscoe told NASCAR.com Saturday. “So that part was unfortunate, but I was actually talking to my dad about it where, out of everybody to win, if I couldn’t win, I kind of wanted SVG just because odds are he’s probably going to win one of the other ones. So I would rather him win it than somebody else, right? Because now, if I don’t win the other road courses, I hope SVG wins them all just because of how it would work out.”
Bubba Wallace of 23XI Racing is 10th in the regular-season standings but 13th in the provisional postseason picture, 57 points above the current dividing line. Plenty of racing lies ahead with roughly two months until the playoffs begin, but with only 10 races to go, drivers like Wallace know their window of opportunity is closing one week at a time.
“I mean, obviously, look, we wanted to be locked in on a win and whatnot,” Wallace said. “We’re getting to 10 races left and still get to that. So that mindset hasn’t changed since post-Kansas 2022 (when Wallace won). We want to (lock in) by going back to Victory Lane. For some, it’s easier than others, but for someone like myself, I need to work very hard and put in twice the effort to get the same result. Sleeves are rolled up tight, excited for the task at hand. We’re getting it all figured out. But momentum’s on our side.”
Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch is currently 20th in the playoff grid, four spots and 50 spots outside the picture entering Pocono. His eyes are set on snapping a career-long 73-race winless streak to lock into the postseason, but he knows points could still get him there — for now.
“I think there’s even a few more winners that could possibly win a race and continue to move that (elimination line higher),” Busch said. “The whole win-and-you’re-in is certainly alive and well and is the best positive thing for you, so we’ll try to get a win. …
“I mean, you could do it on points with where you’re at right now. But if there’s two more winners that are behind you that get in and that puts you to a negative-100 deficit, then obviously that’s not going to be doable.”
The NASCAR Cup Series is at the “Tricky Triangle” this week for The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway (2 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
Pocono is a 2.5-mile, triangle-shaped track with three different radius corners, each with varying degrees of (relatively flat) banking, and three different straightaway lengths. In geometry class, we called that a scalene triangle, and with three differently priced manufacturers for this race, I’ll be scaling that scalene definition to the betting world.
When we examine track history and practice times, one manufacturer stands out with a few undervalued drivers, so I’ll take the lot of them for the win.
As I do every race, I take a close look at my practice FLAGS metric to identify which drivers stand out and if there are any trends in the FLAGS data.
As it turns out, there was a pretty clear trend right off the bat.
Each of the top-four drivers in my group-adjusted FLAGS was piloting a Ford, with Ryan Blaney leading Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, and Brad Keselowski until we reached the first non-Ford, William Byron.
The Blue Ovals also boast a relatively strong recent track history, with Blaney winning this race a year ago and setting the most fastest laps, while Buescher and Keselowski racked up the second- and fifth-most fastest laps.
Ford as a whole took home 71 of the 117 (60.7%) fastest laps, including four of the top five drivers, with Josh Berry grabbing 13 fastest laps. In addition, Cindric claimed four fastest laps, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he ended up in the top four in FLAGS.
Berry is also undervalued in my model, because there’s no way to account for a car not completing any representative at-speed laps, with Berry having a diffuser issue costing him pace in practice and forcing him to miss qualifying.
Even with Berry undervalued in my model, it still shows Ford having a 32.6% chance of winning this race, which translates to implied odds of +207.
If we bump Berry up a bit, this wager likely shows value at close to 2-to-1. However, as always, I like to leave some wiggle room for model error, so I’m comfortable with this down to around +220.
FanDuel is offering this at +260, which is a healthy deviation from my model’s number.
Ford looked fantastic on the long run, so if you’re tailing me on this, we’re probably rooting for a healthy green flag run to end this race, rather than some late-race restarts where Chevy showed plenty of speed on the short run.
The Bet: Ford Winning Manufacturer (+260, FanDuel | Bet to +220)
LONG POND, Pa. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a 100% win rate as a NASCAR crew chief.
The Hall-of-Fame driver, two-time Xfinity Series champion and current JR Motorsports team co-owner helped guide rookie Connor Zilisch and the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet to the win in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series at Pocono Raceway.
Earnhardt found himself atop the pit box subbing for Mardy Lindley, suspended one race after two loose lug nuts were found on the No. 88 car at Nashville. With him to help was his former crew chief and Prime Video broadcast partner, Steve Letarte, as well as Mike Bumgarner and Patrick Martin. But from making the ultimate strategy calls to assisting the pit crew from behind the wall during stops, Earnhardt got exactly what he was looking for out of the weekend: contributing to the outcome in a meaningful way, this time ending in Victory Lane.
“I felt like I really did have a role today that was probably even more than I anticipated,” Earnhardt said. “But I did get a big assist from out of the gate. Mardy, Pat and all the guys on this team, we all sat down at meetings early in the week, understood what we needed to accomplish, had an idea in a game plan, right? We’d come off the trailer fast, car’s comfortable. That was helpful. So we were ready for the race.”
Letarte was more than just a friendly face sitting on the box. A Cup Series crew chief for Earnhardt from 2011-2014 with two wins together at Pocono in 2014, Letarte offered his own input to help Earnhardt navigate the strategy game from pit road to best position Zilisch for success on the track.
“As the race is playing out, Letarte’s sitting up there with us and he’s like, ‘Here’s an opportunity to kind of do what we didn’t do back in 2014,'” Earnhardt said. “So we went for it, made the gamble. I’m glad Steve was up here to kind of help us understand what possibilities were on the table. We’ll have to have him come to the beer toast.”
Victory Lane at Pocono Raceway is tucked neatly into a corner near the Cup Series garage, directly in the paddock area where fans can gather and partake in the celebration from not-so-far. The crowd huddled around the barriers to shower Earnhardt, Zilisch and Co. with cheers, chanting each of their names while they went through the “hat dance” of sponsor photos in celebration, a reminder that Earnhardt hasn’t lost any of his popularity since his days of winning 15 consecutive Most Popular Driver Awards.
Also there to soak in the celebration were his wife Amy and their two girls Isla and Nicole. That perhaps meant more to Earnhardt than anything on Saturday.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get to take them to Victory Lane as a driver, so I love that they get to experience just things about NASCAR,” said Earnhardt, son of seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt Sr. “I had such a great time growing up as a kid in this sport just running around here and and I want them to have that opportunity and understand that this is a place where they could create opportunities for themselves down the road. I’ll let them do what they want to do with their lives, and steer themselves where they want to go and support everything they want to do. But I certainly want them to want them to know that NASCAR is an option and exists and there’s so many possibilities.
“And if they’re enjoying being around it, they can find ways to make a living at it. So we’ll see. These are core memories, that they make, I believe, walking down pit road and going to Victory Lane.”
Going into the weekend, Earnhardt never imagined he and Zilisch would walk away as winners. Zilisch had yet to win on a track that wasn’t a road course and Earnhardt had never served as a crew chief in his storied career. But with help from Letarte, Earnhardt’s decision to leave Zilisch out at the conclusion of Stage 2 rather than pitting him and forfeiting the 10 regular-season points and one playoff point that come with a stage victory ultimately paid dividends late on Saturday evening.
“Steve was definitely all about that strategy,” Earnhardt said. “That’s really right up his alley. But I was nervous because I don’t have Mardy there to really tell me confidently, ‘This is the fuel mileage we’re getting.’ We were in traffic when we were measuring our fuel all day, and then when we get to the lead, the fuel mileage changes a little bit. So you’ve got to adhere to those changes and understand you really can’t push the car and run him out of gas. That’s really one of the last things I wanted to do today.
“So there’s a lot of conversation up there to figure it out and finally land on something we can feel confident about. And so I felt it felt good to have some input and decision-making power, if you will.”
He also offered advice to Zilisch about restarts and techniques, continuing conversations between the two that began midweek.
“He was asking some questions about what he should do,” Earnhardt said, “and I was thankful that he wanted to know those answers because I definitely didn’t want him doing what he thought he should do. But I know he’s the kind of guy that’s like, ‘Hey, tell me everything. There’s not enough information.'”
That information worked, on the final restart of Saturday’s race, Zilisch charged to the left of Jesse Love exiting Turn 3 to pounce for the lead with four laps to go.
The end result? A perfect success rate for Earnhardt as a crew chief.
Track: Pocono Raceway Location: Long Pond, Pa. Track length: 2.5 miles When: Sunday, 2 p.m. ET Where to tune in: Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 160 laps | 400 miles Stages: 30 | 95 | 160 Defending winner: Ryan Blaney, July 2024 Starting lineup:Denny Hamlin wins pole
Pocono poses several tricky challenges as regular season winds down
After Shane van Gisbergen snared a playoff spot last week at Mexico City, 10 tests remain to finalize the mighty grid of 16 title hopefuls.
Postseason urgency kicks off at the “Tricky Triangle,” where winless drivers face long odds to muscle their way upfront. Each of the last 11 winners in Long Pond ranked sixth or higher in the playoff standings and a few past Pocono winners will be tough to beat on Sunday.
Among them is seven-time Pocono winner Denny Hamlin. Admittedly, he may be “rusty” after a week off for the birth of his son, but he should slot back in seamlessly as he leads the field to green.
“It’s a track that no matter the car that we drive or the tires we have on or the aero package, none of that really matters — you still make speed at this race track the same way, no matter what car you’re driving,” Hamlin said. “It’s been one of the few tracks that I haven’t had to change my approach to it depending on the car I’m driving. I think that’s why the success has been sustained.”
That familiarity has helped veterans at times, but the nature of Pocono’s layout leaves room for mayhem. Joey Logano and his crew chief, Paul Wolfe, who always seems to pull a rabbit out of the hat when there’s a slew of different race strategies on the table, shine at tracks like this.
“You’ve got to have the strategy piece worked out and the execution of the race, and restarts in general are chaotic here as well,” Logano said. “This track definitely presents a lot of opportunities to do things. With the stages, the way they fall, being able to pit and not go a lap down, there’s a lot of opportunity to do some crazy stuff.”
The restart zones and pit cycles can reshuffle the deck and possibly produce a new victor. Contenders such as Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace — all with strong runs in past Pocono events — are among those eyeing a breakthrough as time ticks down and not wanting to chance their season on points.
“We would like to take some positive things that we had a year ago to this weekend. That would be great,” Elliott said. “We will just keep chipping away, and I thought we were doing some good things, so we just have to do some of the things we are doing well and add some more to it.”
Then, there’s the track’s mismatched corners and Ryan Blaney — who scored his first Cup win here — relishes the challenge of trying to tackle each end to be the best again.
“I like the challenge of three completely different corners,” Blaney said. “Every race track is different, no matter if it’s an oval. Like both ends are very different everywhere we go. But this is very, very different at all three ends. How do you pick and choose where you want to be good?
“Your driving style is completely different from [turns] one to two to three, so I’ve always liked that change-up. I think it really shows how diverse you are as a race car driver that you can switch it up three times a lap.”
Whether you’re in it to stack more points or punch a postseason ticket, there’s no room left to wait. The time to gamble is now — especially at a track that rewards bold strategy and punishes indecision.
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Pocono Raceway’s unique layout has always provided a challenge to crew chiefs. How do you give a driver the right balance in a car setup across three completely differently shaped and banked corners?
Jonathan Hassler, crew chief for the No. 12 Team Penske Ford, mastered that one year ago, aiding Blaney and Co. to Victory Lane at the “Tricky Triangle.” But it wasn’t because every corner was perfect; it’s that the right sacrifices were made to achieve speed.
“I’ve always tried to pick two corners to be good in and just kind of deal with the other one,” Blaney said Saturday. “And my mindset has always been trying to prioritize [Turns] 1 and 3 and just live over the “Tunnel [Turn].” It’s kind of how we were last year. Like I was great in 1 and 3 and I gave up a little bit of time in the tunnel, but I was still a net positive in those two corners.”
For Hassler, that balance can be, well, tricky.
“It’s tough,” he told NASCAR.com. “Like, Turn 2 is really rough and heights are super important. Sometimes, having the car lower, especially in Turn 3, tends to give overall grip and performance, but you start to maybe take away from Turn 2. So that’s kind of what you’re playing with.”
Cole Custer and the No. 41 Haas Factory Team qualified fifth for their best start of 2025, a performance that comes one week after their best finish of the season at Mexico City where Custer finished eighth. Crew chief Aaron Kramer is careful not to get too far ahead of himself but carries optimism into the 2.5-mile Pocono.
“We’ve had a couple good weeks. I won’t call this a good week yet. It’s a good start,” Kramer told NASCAR.com. “We obviously need to capitalize on our opportunity to make it a good week.”
Part of that will come from fuel mileage. Pocono is renowned for putting a premium on strategy. This year, the fuel component will be coupled with a new, softer Goodyear tire package. The left sides have been used at intermediates like Las Vegas, Darlington and Michigan this year while the right sides are the same as last year’s rights at Indianapolis.
“The tire and the fuel strategy stuff kind of go hand-in-hand,” Kramer said. “The fuel strategy stuff doesn’t work if the tires won’t live as long as you need to make them live to do some of those options. So it’ll be interesting. This tire is a little bit softer than what we ran here in the past.
“Tire wear typically isn’t an issue here, which opens up these different strategy options, but because the tire is a little softer, it may come into play where it forces your hand on some decisions.”
Call it a pattern: Toyota trends well at the triangle. Toyota has won six of the last 10 races in Long Pond. In particular, Hamlin is responsible for half of those six wins and it doesn’t hurt that the No. 11 driver ranks first in speed, long-run speed and restarts at Pocono in the Next Gen car, according to NASCAR Insights. Plus, he’s finished first or second in five of the last eight Pocono races.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
TY GIBBS. The No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing driver has been in play for the win the last two weekends. Gibbs has found some speed to kick off the summer stretch with eight of his last nine qualifying efforts starting in the top 10. At Pocono, he has one run of finishing in the top five in three starts and should it come down to it, the No. 54 crew ranks fourth-best on pit road this season, per NASCAR Insights. Plus, Gibbs would cause a major upset if he can notch his first career win 77 points below the elimination line.
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
Eventful practice and qualifying sessions at Pocono mixed up my lineup from earlier this week. One thing is for certain, a returning Denny Hamlin should be included in your lineup, despite not being keen of his No. 11 Toyota in practice. William Byron had the fastest car on five- and 10-lap averages but wrecked during his qualifying attempt. Hendrick Motorsports has a best starting spot of 18th with Chase Elliott. Chris Buescher, who enters Pocono on the playoff bubble, will take the green flag from the front row and has a top-five car in five-lap averages. Strategy will be aplenty over 400 miles, making it an uphill battle to choose the best lineup.
Lineup: Denny Hamlin, Chris Buescher, Ty Gibbs, Ryan Blaney, Carson Hocevar
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles. • NASCAR at Pocono: Key information, links, results through the weekend | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: $1 million tournament begins to take shape | Read more
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s 400-miler | Read more
• Field of 16: Valuable stage points up for grabs as regular season winds down | Read more • Turning Point to Pocono: Is Chase Elliott the sleeping giant of 2025? | Read more
• At-track photos: Scenes, sights from the Pocono Mountains | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Unlock the vault of the best races held in Long Pond | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs slated for the “Tricky Triangle” | View gallery
• Power Rankings: How the Cup Series field stacks up before Pocono | Read more
