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Denny Hamlin takes Phoenix NASCAR Sprint Cup victory

Denny Hamlin fended off a charging Kevin Harvick while stretching his fuel mileage enough to claim NASCAR Sprint Cup victory at Phoenix and the lead in the points standings

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Hamlin led the final 59 laps, jumping up front during a restart following the sixth caution of the day. By then fuel strategies had already came into play as most of the leaders were a few laps short of making it to the finish without stopping again.

Harvick, who led 88 laps - more than any of his rivals - was closing on Hamlin as the lap count faded, while his crew chief voiced his concern over their fuel efficiency. Eventually his car ran dry with less than two laps remaining but the gap to third-placed Greg Biffle allowed him to coast to the finish line still in second place, ahead of the Roush Fenway driver.

Hamlin credited new crew chief Darian Grubb for his first Phoenix win, Grubb joining him for 2012 after winning the title with Tony Stewart last year.

"This is the first chance that me and [Grubb] get to work together in a race situation when he's got to make a lot of adjustments," said Hamlin. "It was moving forward all day. It's still a learning process between me and Darian and communication still has a long way to go.

"But to have the success this early tells me that once we get things on the right path we're going to be pretty good."

Harvick was still happy to come second and vindicate all the personnel changes his Richard Childress Racing team went through over the winter, and admitted even with a bit more fuel to keep his pace up to the finish, he did would not have had enough time, nor speed, to snatch victory away from the JGR driver.

"When you come out of the caution and they say you're nine laps short, you really don't think there's any possibility to make it [to the finish]," said Harvick.

"Our cars were very evenly matched the whole second half of the race. [Hamlin] was a little bit better on the restarts and I was able to scoop by. On the last restart I lost a couple of spots and that was our weak point of the day."

Biffle's third place was his second in less than a week, leading Ford's attack throughout the entire event. Australian Marcos Ambrose was his shadow for most of the final stint but an engine failure 17 laps from the end cut his day short after a promising run.

Five-time champion Jimmie Johnson had been the pacesetter for most of the first half of the race but an unscheduled stop for a vibration lost him track position. He was able to recover eventually, enjoying a close battle for fourth in the end against Penske's Brad Keselowski.

Kyle Busch led 52 laps but did not have the pace to be a threat in the decisive laps, finishing sixth ahead of Michael Waltrip Racing's Martin Truex Jr, who ran a different fuel strategy, leading 39 laps while being out of sequence.

Hendrick Motorsport's Jeff Gordon, polesitter Mark Martin (Waltrip) and JGR's Joey Logano rounded out the top-10 ahead of Earnhardt Ganassi's Juan Pablo Montoya.

Results - 312 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car                         Time/Gap
 1.  Denny Hamlin        Gibbs Toyota                 2h50m35.000s
 2.  Kevin Harvick       Childress Chevrolet              + 7.315s
 3.  Greg Biffle         Roush Fenway Ford                + 8.176s
 4.  Jimmie Johnson      Hendrick Chevrolet              + 10.152s
 5.  Brad Keselowski     Penske Dodge                    + 11.324s
 6.  Kyle Busch          Gibbs Toyota                    + 11.654s
 7.  Martin Truex Jr     Waltrip Toyota                  + 11.909s
 8.  Jeff Gordon         Hendrick Chevrolet              + 14.892s
 9.  Mark Martin         Waltrip Toyota                  + 17.812s
10.  Joey Logano         Gibbs Toyota                    + 18.920s
11.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Earnhardt Ganassi Chevrolet     + 19.434s
12.  Aric Almirola       Petty Ford                      + 19.682s
13.  Matt Kenseth        Roush Fenway Ford               + 19.996s
14.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Hendrick Chevrolet              + 22.377s
15.  Kurt Busch          Phoenix Chevrolet               + 22.578s
16.  Bobby Labonte       JTG Daugherty Toyota            + 24.037s
17.  Carl Edwards        Roush Fenway Ford               + 25.748s
18.  AJ Allmendinger     Penske Dodge                      + 1 lap
19.  Travis Kvapil       BK Toyota                         + 1 lap
20.  Regan Smith         Furniture Row Chevrolet           + 1 lap
21.  Ryan Newman         Stewart-Haas Chevrolet           + 2 laps
22.  Tony Stewart        Stewart-Haas Chevrolet           + 2 laps
23.  Dave Blaney         Baldwin Chevrolet                + 3 laps
24.  Mike Bliss          FAS Lane Ford                    + 3 laps
25.  David Ragan         Front Row Ford                   + 3 laps
26.  JJ Yeley            Robinson-Blakeney Toyota         + 3 laps
27.  Brendan Gaughan     Childress Chevrolet              + 4 laps
28.  David Gilliland     Front Row Ford                   + 4 laps
29.  David Stremme       Inception Toyota                 + 6 laps
30.  Clint Bowyer        Waltrip Toyota                   + 6 laps
31.  Paul Menard         Childress Chevrolet              + 9 laps

Did not finish:

     Marcos Ambrose      Petty Ford                       295 laps
     Jeff Burton         Childress Chevrolet              291 laps
     Kasey Kahne         Hendrick Chevrolet               274 laps
     Landon Cassill      BK Toyota                        272 laps
     David Reutimann     Baldwin Chevrolet                248 laps
     Jamie McMurray      Earnhardt Ganassi Chevrolet      212 laps
     Josh Wise           Front Row Ford                   110 laps
     Casey Mears         Germain Ford                     109 laps
     Joe Nemechek        NEMCO Toyota                      62 laps
     Robby Gordon        Gordon Dodge                      33 laps
     Scott Riggs         R3 Chevrolet                      29 laps
     Michael McDowell    Parsons Ford                       8 laps

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