The red flag is out in the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway after a caution with 21 laps remaining during Stage 3.
Chase Briscoe made one move too many, trying to split a small gap and making it four-wide going into Turn 3. Briscoe lost control of his No. 14 Ford , going for a spin and slamming into the wall. Denny Hamlin sustained damage to his right front after making contact with a sliding Briscoe. Briscoe was running fourth at the time, while Hamlin was sitting in fifth.
“[Hamlin’s] crew says they’ll plan on cutting the right front fender off and see if he can keep up over the last handful of laps to salvage a decent finish,” Wendy Venturini of Performance Racing Network reported.
Briscoe’s day, however, is done.
Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta provides entertaining racing
The race resumed with 15 laps to go, with Ryan Blaney and Daniel Suarez on the front row. The Ambetter Health 400 was intense throughout and will likely go down as one of the best Cup Series races all season. An all-time Atlanta record for lead changes was broken (47) with 10 cautions taking place as well. Only a handful of drivers raced damage-free.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, we got one of the finest photo finishes we’ve ever seen in the Cup Series. A finish so close, the race winner had to be decided after a review. With Suarez and Blaney jockeying for the lead going into Turns 3 and 4, Kyle Busch split the two of them to make it three-wide. The three drivers remained side-by-side to the checkered line, Suarez getting the nod by the thinnest of margins. It’s Suarez’s second-career Cup Series victory, one that nobody will ever forget.
“Those Fords were strong,” Suarez said after the race. “We knew it would take something special to beat them and the stars aligned. Kyle Busch gave me an awesome push and we just made a big run on the outside. You have no idea what I’m feeling right now.”
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