DOVER, Del. - After a rainy Sunday postponed the Würth 400 to Monday, Joe Gibbs Racing's Martin Truex Jr. led 68 laps and held off Ross Chastain to snap his 54-race winless streak by taking the victory at Dover Motor Speedway.
Truex Jr. earned his fourth career Dover win and 32nd career victory in the NASCAR Cup Series. This is the second time he's won at Dover on a Monday.
Getting the checkered flag and being able to do a post-race burnout is something Truex Jr. hasn't done in a points-paying Cup race since Sept. 11, 2021. That's when he won the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway. The 54-race winless streak was the third longest in his Cup Series career.
"Man, it feels incredible, it felt like we’ve been close a bunch of times, and we gave some away, that’s for sure," Truex Jr. said in a post-race interview. "We know we could do this. We’ve showed it. We’ve led laps.
"We’ve dominated races, and it just would never all come together. I kept saying that we’ve got to just keep doing what we’re doing and not overthink it."
In addition to Truex Jr. winning on Monday, younger brother, Ryan Truex, won his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Dover on Saturday. The Truex brothers became the sixth set of brothers to sweep a race weekend: Jeff Burton/Ward Burton, Kyle Busch/Kurt Busch, Rusty Wallace/Mike Wallace, Rusty Wallace/Kenny Wallace and Darrell Waltrip/Michael Waltrip.
"Yeah, it’s just special, this is a special place," Truex Jr. said. "It was such a big day for our family to see Ryan (Truex) do that on Saturday. He’s worked so hard for so long to get good opportunities, and it was awesome to see him take advantage of that."
Truex Jr. snapping his winless drought overshadowed some of the strong performances throughout the rest of the field, including Chevrolet teammates William Byron and Ross Chastain, who won Stage 1 and Stage 2 respectively.
Byron went on to finish fourth after leading a race-high 193 laps and earning 52 points for winning the first stage and finishing second in Stage 2. During the 2023 season, Byron has not only led the most laps (579), but he also surpassed 2,000 laps led during his NASCAR Cup career.
On the other hand, Chastain has made some more enemies in the garage en route to a runner-up finish while leading 98 laps and earning 51 points. On Lap 81, Chastain bumped into the No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford of Brennan Poole, who was driving slower on the bottom of the track, causing him to spin out and collect the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Kyle Larson.
Chastain apologized for the incident, but Poole, making his first Cup start since 2020, didn't appreciate the "unnecessary" contact.
Team Penske's Ryan Blaney was one of the quietest drivers in the field on Monday as he didn't lead a single lap, but went on to finish third. Blaney scored 50 points and earned his second consecutive top-three finish.
Other Race Facts
The six Toyotas in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover all finished inside the top 13. Martin Truex Jr. won, Denny Hamlin was fifth, Christopher Bell finished sixth, Tyler Reddick came home seventh, Bubba Wallace secured 12th and Ty Gibbs ended up in 13th.
The Würth 400 was Truex Jr.'s first points-paying win in the Next Gen car since it debuted in 2022. At the start of 2023, Truex Jr. won the Busch Light Clash exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
He is now the 20th different driver to win a points race in the new Cup car.
Chris Buescher had the biggest jump in the standings, gaining four positions to move into 12th after a ninth-place finish at Dover. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman both lost six positions. Larson fell to 10th and Bowman, who did not race due to injury, fell to 15th.
Bowman's substitute, Josh Berry, finished in 10th to earn his third top-10 in the Cup Series this season in his sixth start this year.
Results from the 2023 Würth 400 at Dover are listed here.
GRID Ranking
The 2023 GRID Ranking is the seventh year of the premier motorsport ranking in the world and it was initially released on Sunday, April 2.
Drivers in the seven racing series participating in the ranking (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, World Rally Championship, Repco Supercars, MotoGP) have earned GRID Ratings, which helped determine their seeding during Week 4 of the 2023 GRID Ranking.
After Dover, Christopher Bell has found himself back in the GRID Ranking top-10. Bell is the only NASCAR Cup Series driver this season to be inside the top-10 and here is how NASCAR is represented in Week 5 of the GRID Ranking.
DRIVER | OLD RATING | PREVIOUS RANKING | MOST RECENT FINISH | NEW RATING | NEW RANKING |
Christopher Bell | 12.82 | 13th | 6th | 12.70 | 10th |
Kyle Larson | 11.52 | 17th | 32nd | 10.47 | 23rd |
William Byron | N/A | N/A | 4th | 10.21 | 25th |
Tyler Reddick | 9.79 | 30th | 7th | 9.69 | 29th |
Kyle Busch | 10.51 | 24th | 21st | 9.56 | 31st |
Week 5 of the 2023 GRID Ranking:
The next race on the calendar for the NASCAR Cup Series is the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, May 7, at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.
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