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TOYOTA RACING – DENNY HAMLIN CLAIMS HISTORIC VICTORY IN MICHIGAN • Motorsport America

TOYOTA RACING – DENNY HAMLIN CLAIMS HISTORIC VICTORY IN MICHIGAN • Motorsport America

Denny Hamlin Racing Photo

All three Toyota partner teams in the top-three for second time in history

 

BROOKLYN, Mich (June 7, 2026) – Denny Hamlin delivered a historic
victory as he tied the late Kyle Busch with 63 Cup Series wins. He drove
away late to win by more than 10 seconds at Michigan International
Speedway. With the win, Hamlin becomes the first driver in Toyota’s
history to win 60 NASCAR Cup Series races.

Michigan-native Erik Jones had a season-best result for LEGACY MOTOR
CLUB as he brought his Camry home in second, while 23XI Racing’s Bubba
Wallace finished third – giving Toyota a second straight top-three
sweep for the first time in our history. It is the second time Toyota
has swept the top-three finishing positions with three different
organizations (Darlington-2 2025).

Toyota drivers also swept the weekend at Michigan with Gio Ruggiero
winning on Friday in ARCA, Corey Heim claiming victory on Saturday in
Trucks and Hamlin’s win today.

TOYOTA RACING Post-Race Recap

NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)

Michigan International Speedway

Race 15 of 36 – 400 miles, 200 laps

TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS

1st, DENNY HAMLIN

2nd, ERIK JONES

3rd, BUBBA WALLACE

_4th, Kyle Larson*_

_5th, Carson Hocevar*_

10th, CHASE BRISCOE

13th, RILEY HERBST

14th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK

25th, TY GIBBS

31st,_ _CHRISTOPHER BELL

35th, TYLER REDDICK

_*non-Toyota driver  _

TOYOTA QUOTES

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 National Debt Relief Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs
Racing

Finishing Position: 1st

_What does it mean to tie Kyle Busch with 63 wins?_

“The off-season has been so tough for the whole NASCAR community, and
we’ve been losing a lot of people. It is an honor. The only way I
could tie him, was to outlive him. He was just an amazing competitor.
Someone that I learned so much from, and that last run, I drove as hard
as I could to stink them up like Kyle (Busch) did.”

_Can you talk about that last run? _

“This is a really momentum based race track. I didn’t think I was
going to clear those guys on the frontstretch. It just happened when
they were side drafting, it allowed me to clear. That was it for us.”

_How much did you have to work on the race car?_

“We were legit 30th. We were a 30th place car at the beginning. We
couldn’t do anything with it, but the moment the track came to us, and
we got some track position and had some great restarts and this thing
woke up right where it was yesterday.”

_Toyota is winning the Heritage Trophy for the third straight year, and
you have delivered it twice. What does that mean to you? _

“Amazing. 1-2-3 for Toyota, and all three Toyota organizations,
1-2-3. It is fantastic. The LEGACY guys, great finish for them. Bubba
(Wallace), awesome job. This is momentum that both of those teams
need.”

ERIK JONES, No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB

Finishing Position: 2nd

_What does it mean to be on the podium at Michigan?_

“Yeah, it is good. It is a nice day. It is disappointing in some
ways. To have the car we had; it’s not we fluked into second, we were
running up here all day. We had a fast Dollar Tree Camry. It just
didn’t work perfectly. You need everything to go well. Restarts got
chaotic at the end, and the last one didn’t work out for us, and I had
to pick through traffic. By time I got up there, the race was over and
Denny (Hamlin) was gone. A lot of positives to take away. The car was
really fast. I couldn’t ask much more out of it for balance. We will
work on it, and if we keep bringing cars like this, we will win races
soon.”

_ _

TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI
Racing

Finishing Position: 35th

_Are you okay and what happened out there? _

“It was a bit smoky in there, just caught quite a bit of stuff there
on the left side, and it got knocked around, so just a lot of exhaust,
brings some smoke in. I’m alright, just a bummer for our ROCKSTAR
ENERGY DRINK Toyota Camry. I felt like we had really good speed. We were
set up with a good restart to get second there, and maybe race for the
lead there, and just an all-around bummer. I wanted to come in here and
have a good points day. We had really, really good speed yesterday and
it showed again today. All-in-all, it’s a bummer. It’s a race I felt
like we could have won, got away from us. All year long, we’ve done a
really good job at staying out of messes like this, so it’s
unfortunate to have it happen. At least we got a couple of stage points,
we will see if we get back out there. I haven’t heard if we can fix it
yet. We will just have to grind it out. It’s not going to be great,
and going out early next week in qualifying, we will have our work cut
out for us starting early in Pocono, but we will see if we can get our
Camry fixed and move up a couple of more spots, if possible.”

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