Kyle Larson won for the second time in as many appearances at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, topping the podium in front of a raucous crowd Sunday to claim the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube.
Larson’s victory in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet was his first on the season and 24th of his NASCAR Cup Series career. It marked Hendrick Motorsports’ series-leading 10th NASCAR Cup Series triumph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – with five of those victories coming in the past seven races at the track.
“I knew Tyler (Reddick) was going to be the guy to beat,” Larson reflected after the win. “From the first stage, he was really fast there. I was hoping those guys were going to get racing a little bit longer behind me because I felt it was going to time out to where he was running really hard and getting the tow to catch me at the end. Thankfully, I was able to air-lock him a couple of laps and get him tight. I thought (Reddick) and Bubba (Wallace) were going to get working together again to build a run, so I was happy that didn’t happen.
“All in all, such a great, great job by this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team. Just their execution, restarts, pit road ... all of that was great. Cool to get a win here in Las Vegas again, back-to-back, and swept all the stages. Can’t ask for much more than that.”
In 16 Cup Series starts in Las Vegas, Larson now has three wins (2024 Pennzoil 400, 2023 South Point 400, 2021 Pennzoil 400) and 12 top-10 showings. He now has a chance to make it three straight when NASCAR returns this fall to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for a Round of 8 Playoff showdown. Fans can secure tickets to the NASCAR South Point 400 weekend (Oct. 18-20) by visiting LVMS.com or by calling 1-800-644-4444.
Larson swept the first two stages and led 181 of 267 laps. He also led 133 laps in his 2023 win for a remarkable 59% lap-leading clip over that stretch.
Larson held second-place Tyler Reddick in the No. 45 Nasty Beast Toyota at bay by fending off a late charge by 0.441 seconds. Ryan Blaney was third and Ross Chastain snuck ahead of Larson for only an instant after the final restart but faded back to finish fourth. Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five.
“Sometimes second can be good, and sometimes it’s a bad day,” Reddick said. “We had a really fast Nasty Beast Toyota Camry. I mean, we should have been battling up there in the front more than we were today. Just put us behind, unfortunately, and had to battle through that all day. As the field got better, it got harder to get back to the front as quick.”
Reddick finished second in the first two stages. For Gibbs, the 2023 Rookie of the Year, it was his second top-10 on the season. Both Chastain and Gibbs suffered pit-road adversity as Chastain was dealt a speeding penalty in Stage 2 while Gibbs had a poor pit stop late in the same stage.
Noah Gragson, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, pole winner Joey Logano and William Byron completed the top 10.
Chris Buescher hit the wall hard on Lap 28 after an unsecured right-front tire came off into Turn 1, ending his day early and sparking a 10-minute red flag. There were five additional cautions during a race that included 15 drivers combining for 24 lead changes.
Logano extended the Ford Mustang Dark Horse pole streak to three after putting his car on the pole for the second time this season. This marks the first time since 2022 that Ford won three straight series poles, dating to when Ryan Blaney won three in a row at Phoenix, Circuit of the Americas and Richmond.
