NASCAR Enjoy Illinois 300 takeaways: Denny Hamlin scores monumental win for Toyota

On a day full of strategy that included more costly mistakes from playoff drivers, it was Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin standing tall over teammate Chase Briscoe at World Wide Technology Raceway to advance to the Round of 12.

Here are three takeaways from the second race in the opening round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs:

Denny Hamlin gets 200th win for Toyota

Although he did not dominate from the pole position, Hamlin regained the lead in the final stage and led 75 laps to pick up the 59th win of his career. It is Hamlin's series-leading fifth win of 2025, the 200th for Toyota and his first at WWTR after finishing runner-up the last two seasons.

It was a nice bounce back for the 44-year-old veteran, who is still in search of that elusive first title. Despite also winning the pole for the Southern 500 one week ago, Hamlin battled through issues on pit road and salvaged a seventh-place finish to give himself a solid points cushion.

Following his win at WWTR on Sunday, Hamlin is assured a spot in the Round of 12, along with Briscoe. Other than those two, the pressure is on plenty in the championship hunt as the Round of 16 elimination race at Bristol looms.

Missed opportunities for several playoff drivers

While Hamlin walked away with the trophy, other playoff drivers were left wondering what could have been. Kyle Larson took the lead from Hamlin on Lap 8 and led 52 laps, but a bizarre run-in with Ryan Blaney on Lap 134 and diffuser issues stemming from contact with Bubba Wallace on a Lap 156 restart dropped him to 12th.

Blaney recovered to fourth, but had the fastest car over 20 laps in practice, while Wallace won Stage 2 and led 73 laps before settling for eighth. Prior to his car getting stuck in gear and stacking up Larson and several others, Wallace was in command of the race.

Fortunately, all three are in a good position on points with Blaney (+42) the worst of the three. Unless they beat themselves at Bristol, all three should be in a position to win there and get back on track for the Round of 12.

Josh Berry cannot catch a break

No driver has had a more unfortunate start to the playoffs than Josh Berry. The Las Vegas winner's playoff debut began with a spin on the opening lap at Darlington last week that resulted in a last-place finish in 38th.

It only got worse for Berry on Sunday at WWTR when he spun in Turn 2 from 15th after receiving contact from Chase Elliott on Lap 36. As a result, he finds himself 45 points below the cutline, essentially putting him in a win-win scenario going to the Bristol Night Race on Saturday. 

Other than Alex Bowman (-35), who will likely have to win at Bristol to advance as well unless chaos ensues ahead of him, the rest of the playoff field is eligible to point their way into the Round of 12. Not Berry, who heads to Bristol in need of a win to escape what has been an opening round to forget.