Wins in the NASCAR Cup Series can come in many ways. Doing so after finishing third, while exceptionally rare for obvious reasons, also counts.

Chase Elliott did not lead a single lap and finished a distant third to the Joe Gibbs Racing cars of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, the former of whom broke a tie with Elliott’s predecessor and current boss Jeff Gordon for the most wins at Pocono with seven while the latter scored a runner-up in the M&M’s car at the M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 to celebrate the candy maker’s final year in NASCAR. Both JGR drivers’ stories were thrown out the window about an hour later when their cars failed post-race inspection, resulting in their relegations to thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth.

“There was some issues discovered that affect aero of the vehicle,” explained Cup Series managing director Brad Moran. “The part was the front fascia. There really was no reason why there was some material that was somewhere it shouldn’t have been, and that does basically come down to a DQ. It is a penalty, both for the #11 of Denny Hamlin and the #18 of Kyle Busch have been DQed. Their vehicles are being loaded in the NASCAR hauler. They’re going to go back to the R&D Center. The final results have been changed to show that the two DQs were there, and they have the opportunity to appeal it, and it’ll be all sorted out by next week.”

Hamlin is the first Cup race winner to lose his victory since NASCAR implemented its disqualification policy in 2019; the same fate previously struck Ross Chastain when he was a Truck Series driver at Iowa 2019, and Busch in the 2020 Texas Xfinity event. The last disqualified Cup winner was Emanuel Zervakis at Wilson Speedway in 1960 for an oversized fuel cell, while the 1955 Palm Beach Speedway event saw first- and second-placed Joe Weatherly and Jim Reed get knocked off due to an illegal camshaft and valves, respectively.

“We don’t want to be here talking about this,” continued Moran. “We just saw a great race. Last thing you want to do is meet here afterwards and talk about this problem. But the teams and the owners and everybody is well aware that this new car was going to be kept with some pretty tight tolerances, and there’s some areas that all the teams are well aware that we cannot be going down the path that we had in the past with the other cars.

“It is partly to do with the new car, and the rules have tightened up, and everyone has to kind of abide by our new rules, which everybody is well aware of. We saw enough that the DQ was warranted, and we are bringing the vehicles back for further evaluation, so we will look much closer at both vehicles. But as of right now, we are hopefully not going to find anything else, but we are going to inspect them further when we get them back to the R&D Center.”

Toyotas like Hamlin and Busch enjoyed substantial success on Sunday prior to their disqualifications, with the two combining to lead 84 of 160 laps while Busch won Stage #2. Conversely, the Fords struggled with only Michael McDowell finishing in the top ten. Adding to a difficult Sunday for Team Penske, whose NTT IndyCar Series driver Josef Newgarden was poised to sweep his series’ weekend at Iowa before crashing from the lead and eventually being hospitalised after fainting, Ryan Blaney spun off turn three and crashed into the pit wall.

Josh Bilicki and Chastain also retired due to wrecks. The latter, who has been going through a feud with Hamlin for much of the summer stretch, was squeezed into the outside wall by Hamlin and shot down the track. Hamlin was booed by the fans after the race, to which he defended himself by asking, “What did you want me to do? What did you expect me to do? We got position on him, and he just ran out of race track. We’re just going to keep racing hard until we get the respect back from these guys. It’s not just that, we’ve been wrecked four times, twice while leading in the last 10 months. I’m at the end of it.”

While his Toyota compatriots drop to the back, Ty Gibbs is promoted to sixteenth in his Cup début.

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	3	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
2	16	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	160	Running
3	9	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	160	Running
4	11	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	160	Running
5	4	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
6	25	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	160	Running
7	8	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	160	Running
8	7	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	160	Running
9	34	43	Erik Jones	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
10	15	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	160	Running
11	17	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
12	18	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
13	12	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	160	Running
14	26	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	160	Running
15	13	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	160	Running
16	10	45	Ty Gibbs*	23XI Racing	Toyota	160	Running
17	32	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	160	Running
18	19	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	160	Running
19	23	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
20	14	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	160	Running
21	30	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	160	Running
22	27	42	Ty Dillon	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	160	Running
23	28	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	160	Running
24	22	16	Noah Gragson*	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	160	Running
25	29	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	160	Running
26	36	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	160	Running
27	24	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	160	Running
28	33	15	J.J. Yeley*	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	159	Running
29	5	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	158	Running
30	35	78	B.J. McLeod*	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	158	Running
31	20	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	154	Running
32	21	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	142	Accident
33	6	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	135	Accident
34	31	77	Josh Bilicki*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	35	Accident
35	1	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	160	Running (DSQ)
36	2	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	160	Running (DSQ)

Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points