After putting on a clinic over the final 100 laps, Chris Buescher survived a final restart with three laps to go and withstood a challenge from Denny Hamlin to win the Cook Out 400 at Richmond, picking up his first win of the 2023 season and third of his Cup Series career. Buescher becomes the 12th different full-time driver to win a Cup race this season, and his win now virtually secures him a spot in the NASCAR playoffs.
With RFK Racing taking control of the race in the second half, Buescher took command after taking the lead following a pit road miscue by teammate and RFK co-owner Brad Keselowski. Buescher was seemingly bound to cruise to victory with nearly a six-second lead in the final laps, but it was all wiped away when a spin by Daniel Suarez brought out the caution with 10 laps to go.
After getting a great launch on the restart with three laps to go, Buescher was able to drive away from Denny Hamlin and the rest of the field, earning a hard-fought victory in a race that saw a torrid pace on a hot day.
Cook Out 400 unofficial results
- #17 - Chris Buescher
- #11 - Denny Hamlin
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #41 - Ryan Preece
- #6 - Brad Keselowski
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #10 - Aaric Almirola
- #3 - Austin Dillon
- #4 - Kevin Harvick
In this race one year ago, Buescher turned heads with a third-place finish, and he put himself in position to make the playoffs this season on points. However, he and his team were still looking for the raw speed to win races outright, speed that seemingly wasn't there when Buescher qualified 26th and had to come to the front from deep in the field.
"We've had this one circled since last fall. I was really hopeful this could be the one that would turn the page for us. And sure enough, right off the truck I thought it was," Buescher told NBC Sports. "I hate that qualifying went the way it did because I was sitting there just beating myself up trying to figure out what we've got to do from there. But we made it to Victory Lane here in Richmond.
"I would have told you to flood this place three years ago, so my feelings are changing quite a bit here. What a day though. That's awesome."
Buescher's victory marks the first for RFK Racing at Richmond in 10 years, and he becomes the sixth driver in company history to win at this racetrack. Buescher joins Mark Martin (Feb. 1990), Jeff Burton (Sept. 1998), Matt Kenseth (Sept. 2002), Kurt Busch (Sept. 2005) and Carl Edwards (Sept. 2013) in that category.
Sending a Message
For the first 390 laps, Sunday's race at Richmond was lean, clean and green. With the yellow flag only flying twice for the two stage breaks, there wasn't much bumping and grinding to be seen over the course of many long green flag runs -- with one notable exception, stemming from last week's race-deciding incident between Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson.
As he came through traffic on fresher tires late in the race, Kyle Larson came upon Hamlin as he was battling Ryan Preece for third and laid the bumper to him, moving Hamlin up the track and out of his way only a week after Hamlin ran him into the wall while the two were racing for the win at Pocono.
While the contact was notable given the previous week's incident and Larson's feelings on the matter, it ultimately didn't amount to much in the grand scheme of the race. Larson spent much of the race not on the lead lap and eventually wound up 19th, while Hamlin earned yet another top-five finish in second -- while also letting on that Pocono didn't influence how he raced anyone else nor how anyone else raced him in the final three laps.
"I appreciate that's a good talking point. But, no, it was not," Hamlin said when asked by NBC Sports. "I'm out there trying to win the race for sure. I loved getting the front row. I just got a god awful restart. Kyle [Busch] just pushed me down the front straightaway, which is really helpful for us. Thanks for that.
"I just didn't do a good job on the restart. I didn't do a good job into turn one on the second-to-last lap. Our team gave us a shot. The race should have been [Buescher's] anyway. The caution at the end… It was a second chance at life for us there at the end."
While the attrition rate was somewhat raised by Suarez's spin with 10 laps to go, and then by another crash coming to the checkered flag, all 36 cars that started Sunday's race were still running at the finish. That's the first time that's happened in a Cup Series race since the 2018 season finale at Homestead.
Preece Lightning
After what has been a lean 2023 season for the manufacturer, Sunday proved to be an outstanding day for Ford, which accounted for six of the top 10 finishers. And outside of Chris Buescher, no Ford driver received a bigger shot in the arm than Ryan Preece.
After showing good pace from the start of the race onward, Preece would end up driving all the way up to third late in the going before settling for a fifth-place finish after losing two spots on the final restart.
It marks both Preece's first top-five and top-10 finishes in what's been a difficult first season driving for Stewart-Haas Racing, and it's his first finish in either category since he ran fourth at Daytona in August 2021. Preece's top five is also the first top five for Stewart-Haas' No. 41 car since Cole Custer won at Kentucky in July 2020.
With Preece now earning his first top-10 finish, all but two full-time Cup drivers have earned at least one top-10 finish this season. The lone drivers now without a top-10 finish are Noah Gragson (best finish of 12th at Atlanta) and Ty Dillon (best finish of 14th at Talladega).
Bubble Trouble
Of the drivers who had yet to secure a playoff spot entering Richmond, Chris Buescher had the best day of all thanks to his win that now virtually assures him a playoff spot. The second best day belonged to Bubba Wallace, who earned 16 points between the two stages and led twice for 80 laps -- setting a new career-high for laps led in a single race -- before finishing 12th.
That's now put Wallace 54 points above the cut line entering Michigan, and his efforts in building a better gap to the cut line was greatly aided by pedestrian days for other bubble drivers.
Michael McDowell's team swung and missed on tire strategy, as a one-stop strategy they employed in Stage 2 would be foiled when McDowell went a lap down on old tires and then had a penalty for removing equipment from the box. McDowell finished a distant 22nd, but he would end up gaining a single point on the cut line (+18) as others below failed to capitalize.
A 15th-place finish for Ty Gibbs would move him to the first below the cut line (-18), but 27th- and 33rd-place finishes for AJ Allmendinger (-22) and Daniel Suarez (-34) would lead to them losing precious ground. And as that went on, Chase Elliott (-40) and Alex Bowman (-42) would be kept within shouting distance of the cut line with 13th- and 18th-place finishes, respectively.
Race Results Rundown
- Denny Hamlin's second-place finish not only gave him his second straight top-five finish, but it also improved him to second in points. With William Byron finishing 21st, Hamlin is now the first driver back of the points lead and has 39 points to make up on Martin Truex Jr. with just four races to go in the fight for the regular season championship.
- Whether it'll influence his decision on 2024 is anyone's guess, but Aric Almirola continued what has been several weeks of better performance with an eighth-place finish. It's Almirola's second top 10 of the 2023 season and his first since he finished sixth at Martinsville back in April.
- A bit of a statistical oddity: Austin Dillon earned his sixth top-10 finish of the season in ninth, which means that Dillon has finished ninth the last three times (and four times overall this season) he's had a top-10 finish. Dillon's only top-10 finishes with a result other than ninth are a third at Bristol and a 10th at Kansas.
- Though it ended in a 12th-place finish, Bubba Wallace's strong run came in the absence of usual spotter Freddie Kraft, who was not in Richmond after the death of his father on Saturday morning. Tommy Kraft -- a former champion Figure Eight racer at Riverhead Raceway on Long Island -- had his name put above the door of Wallace's car.
- Tyler Reddick had one of the best cars in the field and may have had something to challenge Buescher for the win, but that all came undone as Reddick peeled off from second to make his final green flag stop of the day. Reddick clipped the orange box at the entry to pit road, leading to a commitment line violation and pass-through penalty that would drop Reddick back to 16th after he had led 81 laps on the day.
- There's probably going to be a lot of second-guessing on Kaulig Racing's decision to have AJ Allmendinger run the Xfinity Series race at Road America instead of practicing and qualifying his Cup car, but it isn't as though he was horribly far off of where he's run at Richmond before. A 27th-place finish for Allmendinger marked the third-straight time that he's finished 27th in a Cup race he's competed in at Richmond.
Next Race
The NASCAR Cup Series goes from the tight confines of Richmond to the long and fast Michigan International Speedway for the Firekeepers Casino 400, which is slated for next Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
