August 4, 2025

Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing had a tough day in the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway. Hamlin started the race in the 11th position, but only maintained his position during the race's first stage as he finished the stage in 11th and failed to earn stage points. Thanks to pit strategies, Hamlin did finally crack the top 10 in the race's second stage and ran there for a while until he smacked the wall in the middle of the stage. He continued to struggle with the car's setup and soon lost more ground, leading him to pit road towards the end of the second stage. As a result, Hamlin finished the second stage in 17th place and did not collect any stage points. In the final stage, Hamlin went for a spin a few laps into the stage and fell back in the pack, where he continued to struggle to make up positions on track until he made stops on pit road and relied on strategies to regain track position. Ultimately, this did not help as Hamlin's car just did not have the handling or speed to move outside of the middle of the pack and settled for a finish of 24th. Hamlin now sits 51 points behind William Byron and is fourth in the regular season standings with three races to go, which will be a hard points deficit to overcome with Watkins Glen, Richmond, and Daytona being the next three Cup races.--Sean Engel - RotoBaller
Source: NASCAR.com