For the first time in a 21-year Cup Series career, Denny Hamlin has won three races in a row. The 45-year-old passed Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell with five laps to go at Pocono Raceway on Sunday and held off points leader Tyler Reddick by 1.678 seconds to win the Great American Getaway 400 — his fourth victory of 2026 and a record eighth at the track nicknamed the Tricky Triangle.
The win, following back-to-back triumphs at Nashville and Michigan, lifted Hamlin to 64 career Cup victories and sole ownership of ninth on NASCAR's all-time list. It also trimmed Reddick's regular-season lead to 19 points.
"We come to the racetrack every week knowing we've got a great shot to win," Hamlin said. "The team is doing an amazing job giving me exactly what I need in the car every single week. That's why we're winning."
The finish turned on fuel. Bell, racing with his left wrist in a cast after fracturing it in a crash at Michigan a week earlier, took the lead with 21 laps remaining and led 18 of them on a fuel-saving gamble. He built a buffer of around 10 seconds, but Hamlin's fresher tyres ate into it, and the No. 11 swept past with five laps to go. Bell ran dry as the white flag flew and coasted home 26th.
"We were mired back in the 20s, so I think it was an amazing call," Bell said of the strategy, adding that the calculated risk was "worth it."
On Hamlin's pit box, crew chief Chris Gayle had tracked Bell's fuel number before committing his driver to the chase.
"Once we saw their pace, how many laps we thought they were short, we needed half a second a lap at that point with 20 to go," Gayle said. "We were already getting that when we told him to push."
Reddick recovered from a poor qualifying effort to finish second, passing William Byron in the closing laps, but a tricky day left him without stage points and unable to run Hamlin down.
"We definitely lost time in a couple of spots there," Reddick said. "We knew qualifying was going to be tricky coming into this and just weren't able to get stage points."
Byron completed the podium, with John Hunter Nemechek and Kyle Larson rounding out the top five. Todd Gilliland claimed the first stage win of his career, taking Stage 2 for Front Row Motorsports after Hamlin had won Stage 1.
The race's defining wreck came in Stage 2. Shane van Gisbergen and Josh Berry made contact running three-wide off Turn 3, forcing Berry's Wood Brothers Ford into the wall and collecting a pack of playoff hopefuls. Bubba Wallace was spun and t-boned by Brad Keselowski, ending the RFK Racing co-owner's day; Noah Gragson, Joey Logano and others were swept up. Keselowski was scored last in 38th and dropped out of a provisional playoff spot.
The championship now shapes up as a two-driver fight as the series heads to a street course at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego — terrain Hamlin has acknowledged is not his strongest. For now, the sport's ageless winner is also its hottest.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/hamlin-lands-first-career-three-peat-with-pocono-victory). Visit for full coverage.*
