Kevin Harvick claimed his third victory of the season at Michigan and became the first driver to secure a place in this year's championship playoff series.
The Richard Childress Racing driver ran close to the wall all the way through the 400 miles as he made the most of the speed of his No. 29 Chevrolet on the high groove of the 2-mile oval. He led 59 of the race's 200 laps, passing Denny Hamlin with 10 laps to go when the Joe Gibbs racer put on a late challenge for victory after struggling during the first half of the race.
Harvick stayed on the track during the final caution to move up to second for what turned out to be the final restart of the race. Although he would lose second place to Hamlin, his superior speed on the long runs transpired as the race approached its closing stages. Both he and Hamlin were able to overtake Tony Stewart for the lead, and Harvick then put the pressure on to reclaim the lead that he had held comfortably earlier in the race.
Hamlin tried to force his rival to pass him on the inside line, which allowed him to stay in the lead until Harvick eventually drove on the outside of the No. 11 Camry with 10 laps remaining. Once in clean air, Harvick pulled away to win for the first time at Michigan, a track where he admitted he had struggled for many years in the Sprint Cup series.
"This has been a very bad track for us and to come here and do what we did today says a lot about where RCR is; where our cars are and hopefully what we can do in the last 10 weeks of the season," said Harvick. "Really proud of everybody...it is a lot of fun right now."
Hamlin's second place was almost a victory for him after struggling for balance early in the race, running in the midfield until he was able to finally make progress thorough adjustments and the right strategy, despite electrical issues hampering him all throughout the race.
"We still just didn't have the speed that we needed," said Hamlin. "It seemed like the same as qualifying, just don't have that overall speed. It helped today that the conditions were a little bit worse and the speeds slowed down because of the sun. It helped us a little bit. I feel like if we had overcast conditions like we had during practice, I thought we were going to be in trouble."
Carl Edwards led a great showing from Roush Fenway Racing, finishing third, right ahead of teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth. Biffle had looked the strongest of the three leading the most laps, all of them in the first half of the race. Edwards made a great final restart in which he was able to pass his teammates as well as Stewart, who took sixth in the end.
"That's probably one of the strongest performances we've had as a team in a long time, it definitely is," said Edwards. "There at the end I felt like we were coming on. We had a very fast racecar. Greg was real fast. Matt was real fast. I think if we could have capitalized on those tires, had a little bit of track position, maybe a little bit of a caution or something, we would have been really, really good."
Juan Pablo Montoya recovered after struggling with a loose car halfway through the race, taking four tires on the penultimate caution while most of the leaders took two. That allowed him to run in the top five close to the end although he would eventually lose out to the Roush Fenway trio in the final laps. Joey Logano rounded out the top-10 but had to confront a furious Ryan Newman after making contact with him on lap 148.
The race was a disappointing one for Hendrick Motorsports, with Jimmie Johnson finishing highest from the outfit in 12th after leading the race early. Jeff Gordon looked a strong contender also until a flat left-front tire put him out of contention for victory.
Clint Bowyer was 13th at the line and moved back inside the top-12 in the standings, while Mark Martin hit the wall early, finishing down in 28th place and dropping out of the cut for the Chase, which takes place in three weeks' time.
Pos Driver Car Laps
1. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 200
2. Denny Hamlin Toyota 200
3. Carl Edwards Ford 200
4. Greg Biffle Ford 200
5. Matt Kenseth Ford 200
6. Tony Stewart Chevrolet 200
7. Juan Montoya Chevrolet 200
8. Martin Truex Jr Toyota 200
9. Elliott Sadler Ford 200
10. Joey Logano Toyota 200
11. David Ragan Ford 200
12. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 200
13. Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 200
14. Kasey Kahne Ford 200
15. Marcos Ambrose Toyota 200
16. David Reutimann Toyota 200
17. A.J. Allmendinger Ford 200
18. Kyle Busch Toyota 200
19. Dale Earnhardt Jr Chevrolet 200
20. Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 200
21. Regan Smith Chevrolet 200
22. Bill Elliott Ford 200
23. Ryan Newman Chevrolet 200
24. Jeff Burton Chevrolet 200
25. Scott Speed Toyota 200
26. Reed Sorenson Toyota 200
27. Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 200
28. Mark Martin Chevrolet 200
29. Patrick Carpentier Ford 200
30. Travis Kvapil Ford 200
31. Tony Raines Ford 200
32. Sam Hornish Jr Dodge 200
33. Bobby Labonte Chevrolet 198
34. Brad Keselowski Dodge 197
35. Paul Menard Ford 197
36. David Gilliland Ford 195
37. P.J. Jones Toyota 64
38. Landon Cassill Chevrolet 54
39. Robby Gordon Toyota 34
40. Kurt Busch Dodge 30
41. Max Papis Toyota 27
42. Michael McDowell Toyota 20
43. Joe Nemechek Toyota 14