Denny Hamlin made two huge statements with Michigan win

Denny Hamlin made two statements at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday afternoon. 

The first was that he is the best version of himself that he's been in his 20-year NASCAR career. One week removed from a last-to-first drive at Nashville Superspeedway, Hamlin replicated the feat. He took the lead with 38 laps to go in the FireKeepers Casino 400 and won by a fitting 11.11 seconds.

The second statement he made was one of tribute to Kyle Busch, who died on May 21 at the age of 41. Busch's death shocked the NASCAR community, including Hamlin, who was Busch's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing from 2008-22. 

Hamlin's victory at Michigan on Sunday was the 63rd of his Cup Series career, tying him with Busch for ninth on NASCAR's all-time wins list. Hamlin celebrated Sunday with a Busch flag hanging out of his driver's side window. 

"I just wanted to pay my respects to someone that I really did look up to and taught me so much as a teammate," Hamlin said in his post-race news conference. "There’s nothing we can say or do that’s going to make his family feel better, but at least during that little time, you can pay him the respects that he deserves."

Sunday's win didn't come easy for Hamlin. Far from it. For the second straight week, he had to claw his way through the entire field to get to the lead and eventually score the win that led to his emotional celebration.

Why Denny Hamlin was nervous at Michigan

"I knew that flag was sitting in the pit box area," Hamlin said. "I knew the hat was waiting for the moment. So it’s — you know, I don’t know why, but over the last few weeks, like I get nervous when I know that like we have a really, really good shot at winning."

Hamlin needn't have been nervous, as it turned out. Over the final run, he absolutely decimated the field, putting up lap times half-a-second faster than everyone else on the racetrack en route to the historic win. 

Hamlin can pass Busch and secure ninth on NASCAR's all-time wins list for himself with a victory at Pocono Raceway on June 14, a track where Hamlin is the Cup Series' winningest driver with seven wins.

But Sunday's win will always be a special one to Hamlin not just because of how it will be viewed in the record books, but because of how soon it came after Busch's death. It was, just as Kevin Harvick's 2001 Atlanta win three races after the death of Dale Earnhardt, a healing moment of sorts for NASCAR.

That doesn't mean Busch would've necessarily been happy to see his longtime teammate tie him in race wins, though.

"He would have been p----- today, absolutely," Hamlin said, "But I would have said to him, 'You’ll be around here longer. You’ll get me back.'"

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.