Hamlin scored his sixth win at the track after winning the race off of pit road in a Carl Edwards-themed throwback car. He took home his 56th career victory, breaking a tie with Rusty Wallace for 11th place in all-time NASCAR Cup wins. 

“There's two people I really love right now, my pit crew and Kyle Larson,” Hamlin said to FOX Sports reporter Regan Smith. Larson spun out twice during the race, drawing the caution with 4 laps to go.

From there, Hamlin’s pit crew delivered a blazing fast stop that earned him the lead going into a two-last dash to the finish. “The pit crew just did an amazing job,” he said.

“They won it last week, they won it this week,” Hamlin said regarding his crew’s role in his last two wins. Sunday was the third time in his career that Hamlin had won consecutive races.

The Joe Gibbs Racing team has won five of the first eight races in 2025, a feat only accomplished three times since 1972. However, the win came at the expense of Ryan Blaney.

Blaney had taken over the race lead moments before Larson spun. He hunted down Tyler Reddick from 17 seconds behind and battled past Reddick just before the final caution.

“I feel like nothing ever really went our way,” Blaney told Jamie Little after the race. He said the car was fast and “kept making up spots,” but the team struggled on short runs and in the pits.

Blaney entered the pit lane as the leader and left outside the top three. 

“It wasn’t meant to be, but proud of the effort, and we’ll just keep plugging along,” Blaney said.

It was the first Top 10 for Blaney in six weeks after suffering two engine failures during that stretch. He climbed up from 10th to 7th in points as Halmin gained six spots in the standings.

William Byron, in his No. 24 Jeff Gordon throwback car, controlled much of the race by leading the first 243 laps. Per NASCAR Insights, that was the most laps led by a driver since Jeff Burton in 2000.

Byron stayed out during the final pit cycle longer than all but Hamlin and Blaney then got stuck behind Christopher Bell. He made up two spots on the restart but came up short of his second win of 2025.

As for Byron’s Hendrick teammate, Kyle Larson left the NASCAR throwback weekend with mixed results. The weekend started well when his Terry Labonte-inspired 2003 Frosted Flakes Chevrolet won best in the show.

Then the weekend took a nosedive following the spin on lap 4 and his team worked hard to get his car repaired. They fell 161 laps behind the pace, finishing 37th after the second spin.

Larson will be behind the wheel of a car in all three NASCAR events at Bristol Motor Speedway next week. He attempts to be the second driver to sweep a weekend since Kyle Busch in 2017.

The Cup Series race is the Food City 500 and Hamlin is the defending race winner. 500 laps of high-banked short track action is set to start at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.