Hamlin earns first top-five finish of the season at Richmond

“Some of the issues you have are masked a little bit on a short track. By no means does this mean we’ve fixed everything,” Hamlin said following Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.

“You have to take solace in some small wins and goals. We executed great and didn’t make any mistakes. We can build on that and survive this part of the season where we don’t have the fastest cars.”

Still, Hamlin managed to earn his first top-five and best finish of the season. His previous best was sixth at Las Vegas.

Hamlin’s 59 laps led are also the most this season. His previous high was 24 at Martinsville, Va.

Hamlin’s crew chief, Mike Wheeler, will likely face a fine this week after the No. 11 Toyota was found to have a missing lug nut on its right-rear wheel.

“We were competitive and my car drove very good but we’re lacking a little bit of speed from (Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano), they just run a little bit more sideways then what we run and they had more grip,” Hamlin said.

“I think we optimized our day for the most part and that’s about as good as we could do.”

With 19 of 400 laps remaining, Ryan Blaney hit the wall, which brought out a caution that brought out several different strategies.

Kyle Larson and five others elected to stay on the track but Logano, Keselowski and Hamlin were among those who took four new tires.

As it turned out, the first three off pit road on fresh tires, finished 1-3 in the race.

“We couldn’t beat (Keselowski) and (Logano) straight up, so it’s different and you just keep coming in and pitting for tires to try steal one even though we were a third place car,” Hamlin said.

“The strategy got all mixed up there and we were luckily able to get back up there and finish where we should have.”