Kyle Busch rants on radio after his Toyota falls short

• Kyle Busch led 302 laps and Denny Hamlin led 39 but neither finished in the top five
• Busch has endured a tough season after missing the Chase by three points
• Hamlin remained upbeat that he could catch points leader Brad Keselowski

DOVER, Del. -- Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch occupied the top two spots for more than half of Sunday's AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.

But when the checkered flag flew, the Joe Gibbs Racing teammates had nothing to show for it but dazed looks and 12-letter profanities to describe the frustration of fuel mileage that wasn't up to par.

"It's like all the hard work that you do just doesn't pay off," Hamlin said after starting from the pole, leading 39 laps and finishing eighth. "You look at the (scoring) pylon at the end of the race, and you wonder how so many slow cars beat you."

The answer was simple Sunday: The JGR Toyotas traded horsepower for fuel economy, and it bit them when Busch and Hamlin pitted from the lead on consecutive laps and essentially handed the win to Brad Keselowski, who led the final 10 laps after stretching his final tank of fuel 89 laps.

"We choose to have the horsepower over the fuel mileage, and some guys don't tune that way," Hamlin said. "When you have a race-winning car, you don't want to give up any of the horsepower."

Dave Rogers, crew chief for Busch, said the team was "on max power" because he wasn't expecting the race to be determined by efficiency.

"We played our best cards, and we came up short," Rogers said. "There was no doubt we had the fastest car."

Busch, though, had choice words for Toyota Racing Development on his team radio after his No. 18 led 302 of 400 laps but finished seventh. "Thank you, TRD," the driver, who has endured several motor problems this season, said sarcastically in a transmission littered with vulgarities. "(Screwed) us out of another one."

Hamlin, who also was burned by a pit miscue when his No. 11 ran out of gas in the Chase for the Sprint Cup opener at Chicagoland Speedway, fell 16 points behind Keselowski in the standings but was upbeat about overcoming the deficit.

"They're not going to beat us on the track," said Hamlin, who scored only his fifth top-10 in 14 starts at a track he labeled his worst in the Chase. "We're just too fast right now, and I feel like everything is going well. These strategy games and the way these cautions are falling, it's ill-timed. These cautions fly when some people can and some people can't make it.

"We need to improve on our fuel mileage, and we'll work on that as much as anything. I'm not too discouraged because we ran our (butt) off today. ... This fuel-mileage game sucks. Some people have better mileage but not as good a handling race car. I'll take good handling cars and good horsepower any day."