Denny Hamlin breaks down race-winning pass on William Byron at Michigan: ‘He made it difficult’

Denny Hamlin put on a masterclass at the end of this past weekend’s race at Michigan International Speedway. He put the pressure on William Byron, and passed the No. 24 Chevrolet to notch another victory.

While Hamlin relented that Byron made it difficult on him, the Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman was in control as the laps ticked away. The pass happened with about four to go, and Hamlin explained what went into his decision-making at that time on the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.

“It wasn’t a given. He made it difficult,” Hamlin stated, regarding Byron. “But I thought that, since I got there with 10, 12 to go, I thought I had enough speed to where it was going to be difficult for him to hold us off for that long. Like, surely I was going to get position on him at least once during the course of that. It just so happened to happen with, you know, four to go or so.

“These cars are super stable and you can’t really get them out of shape from behind. I’m not going to come in here and just give you all the secret sauce, but there’s ways you can manipulate the cars, even though that it certainly is better to be the first, the front car — but there’s still ways from behind you can change their car.”

Moreover, Byron potentially running out of gas from the lead would’ve given Hamlin the win anyway, but the No. 11 wheelman didn’t want to take any chances. He pushed Byron as much as he could, and that was the difference when it was all said and done.

“I never wanted to assume he was going to run out of gas,” Hamlin added. “I treated the end of that race as if he was fine on gas. Even as the crew chief said, ‘Just run it all out here, you’ve got to keep the lead,’ so it didn’t matter, because we ended up passing him. But yeah, we forced him to run out of gas anyway, because of the pace.

“When he was in the lead, we were running fourth. He had the No. 5 behind him. Everything is cozy at that point, because he can run half-throttle. The No. 5 can run half throttle, because he’s not going to pressure him. The No. 54 is trying to save. But I’m the first in line that’s like, ‘Screw this, I’m going all out.’ We forced him to use more gas than what he was budgeting.”

As you can tell, Denny Hamlin used his savvy to get the dub at Michigan, and it paid off in a big way. He’s having a wildly successful season in 2025, and he’ll certainly be a factor in the championship if he continues to race this way, when the time comes, of course.