Denny Hamlin

LAS VEGAS — Denny Hamlin returned to victory lane at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday for his first win since he lost the NASCAR championship four months ago, and first since the death of his father in a December house fire.

“I knew it took a few weeks to feel like driving,” Hamlin said after his 61st career victory. “Over the last couple weeks, I definitely regained my love of it, got refocused. These are great opportunities for us.”

Hamlin’s 60th career victory was at Las Vegas last October, a win he dedicated to his father as it locked Hamlin into NASCAR’s championship-deciding finale. His father was in poor health and Hamlin went into the race knowing it was probably his final chance to win a championship while Dennis Hamlin was still alive.

Then Hamlin dominated last year’s title-decider at Phoenix Raceway but the wrong call on the final pit stop cost him the Cup championship that has eluded the three-time Daytona 500 winner.

What followed was an emotional rollercoaster: Hamlin, as co-owner of 23XI Racing, was part of the winning team in a federal lawsuit against NASCAR last December. Weeks later, his father was killed in a fire that destroyed the home Hamlin purchased to thank his parents for getting him into NASCAR.

He returned for the start of his 21st season and went to victory lane as an owner with Tyler Reddick when the 23XI Racing driver won the Daytona 500 and then set a NASCAR record by winning the first three races of the year.

Most of the attention went to 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan as Reddick won Daytona, Atlanta and Circuit of the Americas.

Hamlin did his part at Las Vegas to put himself back in the spotlight.

“It is just so satisfying, so gratifying. You just never know what can happen year over year if you still have it or not,” said Hamlin. “I wasn’t totally locked in for the first few weeks. We’ve just been hitting our stride now. This is our bread and butter, these are the tracks that we know we can go win, and we executed. This is a team win. The team did it.”

Antonelli prevails

SHANGHAI — He’s been defined by being Lewis Hamilton’s successor and George Russell’s teammate. Now Kimi Antonelli is a Formula 1 race-winner in his own right, and the second-youngest in history.

The 19-year-old Italian pulled clear of an entertaining battle between Russell and the two Ferraris to take a commanding win at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday and share the podium with his teammate and Hamilton, the seven-time champion he replaced last year.

“I’m speechless. I’m about to cry, to be honest,” Antonelli said, holding back tears. “Thank you so much to my team because they helped me to achieve this dream.”

Elsewhere:

– Kyle Kirkwood keeps taking it to the streets in IndyCar, and this time he won a new race to take over the series lead. Kirkwood made an aggressive pass below four-time series champion Alex Palou with 15 laps to go, stayed in front the rest of the way and took the checkered flag for the inaugural Grand Prix of Arlington under caution Sunday. It was his sixth career win, the fifth in a street race.

– Kyle Larson won the O’Reilly Series LiUNA race on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.