From fifth on the grid, the Trackhouse Racing driver finished 11th after 400 laps of the half-mile paperclip.

Van Gisbergen held his own in Stage 1 to finish sixth and collect a bag of stage points.

Stage 1 was clinched by Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin ahead of William Byron, Josh Berry, Ty Gibbs, and Austin Cindric.

The first stage was brought to an early end thanks to a caution when Cody Ware spun his #51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet Camaro off the nose of the #42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota Camry driven by John Hunter Nemechek.

Van Gisbergen reported his car was “pretty decent” during the stage break, but struggled for corner exit grip in Stage 2.

The second caution came out on Lap 105 when AJ Allmendinger in the #16 Kaulig Racing Camaro spun the #4 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang of Noah Gragson.

Stage 2 was a relatively uneventful affair, which was once again won by Hamlin ahead of Gibbs and Joey Logano. Van Gisbergen, meanwhile, ended the stage in eighth.

As the final round of green flag pit stops approached, van Gisbergen and his team elected to go aggressive on their strategy and pit early to execute an undercut.

SVG pitted on Lap 268 and once the pit stop sequence had cycled through, he was up to second behind Chase Elliott in the #9 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro and ahead of Hamlin.

It was ultimately a game of diminishing returns as those on newer tyres who pitted later got by van Gisbergen.

Debris on lap 312 brought the yellow out again and neutralised the race with van Gisbergen in eighth.

The race resumed on Lap 324, but the yellow was drawn again when Bubba Wallace in the #23 23XI Racing Camry tipped Carson Hocevar’s #77 Spire Motorsports Camaro into a spin.

Zane Smith in the #38 Front Row Motorsports Mustang was caught up in the incident. Wallace got sandwiched between him and Hocevar, and wrecked the Camry beyond repair.

Van Gisbergen maintained his top 10 run when the race resumed, but continued to struggle firing off for the restart and fell back to 12th.

Ultimately, he came up just short of the top 10 with 11th.

“It was an awesome day,” said van Gisbergen.

“Starting up front, the racing flows much better and cleaner.

“Ran in the top 10 all day but just lacked grip and was weak on restarts.

“The 97 team brought a fast SuperFile Chevrolet, just wish we could’ve gotten a top 10 result.

“Collected some stage points and had a lot of fun! Great progress heading into the off weekend.”

The race was won by Elliott, who survived a late attack from Hamlin. The #11 had been dominant all day until the final pit stop sequence vaulted the #9 into the lead.

On Lap 261, Elliott pitted early from ninth in a similar vein to van Gisbergen.

That debris caution on Lap 312 gave Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports a massive free kick, pitting from second under the yellow behind Hamlin.

Ross Chastain took the lead of the race, having elected not to pit. Hamlin was second while Elliot restarted third on Lap 343.

Elliott cleared Hamlin on the short-lived restart, and once he disposed of Chastain after Lap 331 there was no looking back.

“It was definitely a team effort,” said Elliott.

“How about that? That was awesome. We’ve never had a win this early in the season, so just a really great team effort.

“We took a gamble. We were going to two-stop that last stage. I honestly think it was going to work out really good for us either way.

“Just so proud of them. They put up with a lot and they’ve got to put up with me all the time. I just appreciate them for sticking with me and it sure is a lot of fun when days like this work out.”

Try as he might, Hamlin couldn’t catch Elliott.

“He did a good job to control the pace there,” said Hamlin, who led 292 of the 400 laps.

“It really came from that bad restart I had beside (Ross Chastain). Not much really I could have done there.

“I felt like we gave it our all. These are just some of the races that get away from you in your career, and this one is certainly one of them.”

The NASCAR Cup Series takes a weekend off for Easter and returns on April 12 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Results: NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400, Martinsville Speedway

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