Put Denny Hamlin’s back against the wall and he’s almost always going to deliver. That’s exactly what he did in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at the Richmond (VA) Raceway. After spending a week getting blasted by his peers for a move that he made to win last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the Pocono Raceway, Hamlin went out and qualified third on Saturday.

He was the topic of conversation on Saturday too. Was his move fair or foul? Would others make the same maneuver if they were in his position?

“I appreciate that’s a good talking point. But, no, it was not. I’m out there trying to win the race for sure,” said Hamlin.

The Virginia native had a clean day with Larson only putting the bumper to Hamlin once but nothing worth really noting outside of that as it didn’t cost Hamlin anything on track.

He was running second to Chris Buescher until the final caution with 10 laps remaining. That erased a 5+ second deficit that Hamlin had to the leader and gave him new life to try and win for a second straight week.

However, he didn’t do a good enough job on the restart he feels to do any damage for the win though.

“I loved getting the front row. I just got a god-awful restart,” he said. “Kyle (Busch) just pushed me down the front straightaway, which is really helpful for us. Thanks for that.

“I just didn’t do a good job on the restart. I didn’t do a good job into turn one on the second-to-last lap. Our team gave us a shot.”

As a result of a bad restart, he had to drive overly aggressive to make up ground. As a result of doing so, he got into the Turn too hot and slid up the track.

“I drove in way too deep,” Hamlin said of pushing wide on the restart. “I was trying to get to the outside there. Really had a great run off of turn two on the restart and off of four again.

“But, yeah, I was just so close to him there that I wanted to try to squirt a little extra gas to try to get to the outside. Just too much brake.”

Hamlin was still proud of his Mavis sponsored team for keeping him in the hunt all day. He says they lacked a little in comparison to Buescher but overall, it was a good day.

“The race should have been his anyway. The caution at the end… It was a second chance at life for us there at the end.”

It was Hamlin’s 215th career top five finish in NASCAR’s premiere series and 331st top 10. However, here at Richmond, the second-place finish in his No. 11 Toyota was the fifth on the .75-mile track for Hamlin including three of which occurring in the last six tries. He’s finished 5th, 3rd, 12th, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 20th and now 2nd since 2019.

On the season, he’s now had two straight top two finishes and five top seven’s in the last eight races now.