NASCAR: Byron wins Pennzoil 400 Cup race at Vegas

William Byron passed Martin Truex Jr. with a final green-white-checkered race to the checkered flag and held off Hendrick Chevy teammates Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman to win the Pennzoil 400 NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Toyota drivers Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell rounded out the top-5.

Quick work by Byron’s pit crew enabled the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver to beat teammate Kyle Larson off pit road for an overtime restart in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and that was the decisive factor in Byron’s fifth career NASCAR Cup Series victory.

When Aric Almirola spun into the Turn 4 wall with four laps left of a scheduled 267, the race turned upside down. At that point, Larson held a two-second lead and appeared the almost certain winner.

After NASCAR called the fourth and final caution, Martin Truex Jr. stayed on the track, with Byron, Larson and most of the other contenders pitting for two tires. Byron’s crew was a fraction of a second faster on the stop, and Byron claimed a front-row starting spot for the overtime to Truex’s outside.

On the first overtime lap, Byron surged past Truex as the cars entered Turn 3 at the 1.5-mile track and pulled away to win by 0.622 seconds over Larson and 0.766 seconds over teammate Alex Bowman. It was the third time Hendrick Motorsports had finished 1-2-3 in a Cup Series event.

The drivers accomplished the feat with their fourth driver, Chase Elliott, watching from North Carolina with team owner Rick Hendrick. Elliott broke his left tibia in a snowboarding accident in Colorado on Friday and will miss multiple races as he recovers from surgery.

Josh Berry, substituting for Elliott, finished 29th and two laps down in his first race in NASCAR’s Next Gen car.

“Yeah, just been really confident about the group of guys that I have on this 24 team,” said Byron, who led 176 of 271 laps, swept the first two stages and won for the first time at Las Vegas. “They work extremely hard, and we spent a lot of time in the offseason just going through running at the sim (simulator) with Chevy and running on iRacing and just trying to get better as a race car driver and as a team.

“Thinking of Chase back home. Wish he was out here with us. He’s a great race car driver, great teammate. Wish he was out here.”

For the overtime restart, Larson chose the inside lane behind Truex and was bottled up behind the No. 19 Toyota. But Larson acknowledged the race was lost on pit road.

“Damn,” Larson said with a wry laugh. “It’s just part of Cup racing. It seems like kind of laps down, lap by lap, and then, sure enough, the yellow lights come on. You’ve just got to get over that and then try to execute a good pit stop, and I thought I did a really good job getting to my sign and getting to the commitment line.

“I had a gap to William behind me, and their pit crew must have just done a really good job and got out in front of us, and that gave up the front row. I knew I was in trouble with the 19 staying out. I felt like William was going to get by him.

“Yeah, just a bummer that we didn’t end up the winner, but all in all, William probably had a little bit better car than I had today, and their pit crew executed when they needed to there at the end.”

The win is Byron’s fifth victory in 183 career starts in NASCAR’S premier series.

The win marked Byron’s first NASCAR Cup Series victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Hendrick Motorsports recorded a one-two-three finish with Byron leading teammates Kyle Larson (second) and Alex Bowman (third).

Chevrolet is now three-for-three in NASCAR Cup Series points-paying races in 2023, with Byron becoming the third driver from the third different Chevrolet team to claim a victory and a playoff berth.

In the overtime scramble, Bubba Wallace finished fourth and Christopher Bell fifth, both in Toyotas. Austin Cindric, who had been lapped at one point, recovered to run sixth as the top-finishing Ford driver. Truex, Justin Haley, Kevin Harvick and Daniel Suárez completed the top 10.

In a race that featured 13 lead changes among eight drivers, Larson took the top spot on Lap 196 after restarting third behind Denny Hamlin and Bowman on lap 190. The 2021 series champion extended his advantage to nearly five seconds over Byron during an exchange of green-flag pit stops before Almirola’s accident caused the fourth caution on Lap 263.

Byron had cut Larson’s lead to two seconds before the accident forced overtime.

The first caution for an on-track incident didn’t occur until Lap 183, nine laps after the final stage went green. Pole winner Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch were running three-wide through Turn 4 when disaster struck.

With Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford in the middle, Logano ran out of room to the outside, and after contact with Keselowski’s car, Logano’s No. 22 Ford bounced off the wall and spun into the infield grass.

Logano brought his car to pit road, but his crew couldn’t repair the Ford before the seven-minute time limit ran out under NASCAR’s damaged vehicle policy.

Asked whether Keselowski pinched him into the corner, Logano replied, “Yeah, he did. I’m sure he didn’t mean to do it. It is what it is. What are you going to do, right? We got fenced.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 RAPTORTOUGH.COM CAMARO ZL1 – RACE WINNER

“I’ve been really confident about this group of guys on the 24 team. They work extremely hard. We spent a lot of time int he offseason just going through and running at the sim with Chevy and running on iRacing and just trying to get better as a racecar driver and as a team. It’s all about the team. It’s a great pit crew. We’re also thinking of Chase (Elliott) back home. We wish he was out here. He’s a great racecar driver and great teammate. I wish he was out there. Thanks to Mr. H (Rick Hendrick) and Jeff Gordon. I know he’s watching. This RaptorTough.com Chevy was awesome. When we got back in traffic, it was a little tight but we knew we had speed so just had to have the right things play out. Rudy (Fugle, crew chief) made a good call, so it was good.”

ON THE FINAL PIT STOP: “The one pit stop they had where we lost the lead, I slid through the box or slid long so that delayed the stop. That was on me and I knew they could get it done in the end. Rudy has been under the weather all day so he’s been really quiet on the radio. Luckily, it worked out there. Just thanks to all the fans for coming out. I always love racing at Vegas and how you move around. I’m excited for the year.”

MORE ON THE WIN AND PIT CREW: “It was awesome. They did a great job all day. The one pit stop that I messed up, I slid long and we lost the lead. So they just did an amazing job all day. We wanted to bring this thing out (oversized victory hat), too. It was something I saw in the NFL and wanted to do it. It’s pretty cool. It’s got all our sponsors nice and big.”

HOW BADLY DID YOU NEED THIS RACE? “It’s been tough. Honestly, we started out and speed in the first two races but we just didn’t put it all together. We had speed at the (Daytona) 500 and had speed at California and had some issues. So it just worked out. It’s awesome.”

THOUGHTS ON THE FINAL RESTART: “I was focused on getting a good launch and launch with the 19 and see what happened from there. I’m fortunate that it worked out the way it did. Rudy made a great call, and we were able to put a little bit of a block on the 11 to keep him behind us. It worked out.”

KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 2nd

IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD IT IN HAND. WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN THE CAUTION CAME OUT? 

“Damn. It’s just part of Cup racing. It seems like you count the laps down lap by lap, and then sure enough the yellow lights come on. You just have to get over that and try to execute a good pit stop. I thought I did a really good job getting to my sign and getting to the commitment line. I had a gap to William behind me, so their pit crew must have done a really good job and got him out in front of us. So that gave up the front row to us. I knew I was in trouble with the 19 staying out. I felt like William was going to get by him. It’s a bummer that we didn’t end up the winner, but all in all William probably had a little better car than I had today and their pit crew executed when they needed to at the end.”

MORE ON LATE CAUTION: 

“You can’t fuss about it too much. You just try to get focused on the pit stop and try to execute and do a good job. I felt like I did everything on my end good. I had a gap to the 24 behind me when we got the commitment line. I got to my sign good and got to pit-road speed good and all that. Their pit crew must have done a really good job. He edged us out there on pit road, and that was the race. It’s part of Cup racing. These are really, really tough to win and you have to execute from top to bottom. We did a good job today but their pit crew was a little faster on the last stop. A bummer but all in all I’m happy and proud of the effort from our Hendrick team. I’m looking forward to getting to Phoenix next week.”

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 3rd

YOU HAD A GOOD DAY AND DROVE YOUR WAY FORWARD. WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED TO DRIVE TO VICTORY LANE AGAIN?

“We were really fast in Stage Two. I was a little indecisive with what I wanted in the racecar. There were times I was a little free and times where I was a little snug. I hedged us to securing the back of the racecar a little bit and got us too tight for Stage Three, so that’s on me. Every change I wanted, I got. I just got us a little bit too tight. I’m really proud of the 48 team. I’m really pumped for HMS to be 1-2-3. I’ve been on the good side of those consecutive finishes so now I’m on the other side. But it was a fun race with our teammates. I’m glad we were able to get a 1-2-3 on the last restart. Rudy is a little under the weather so hopefully that gets him feeling a little better than he was this morning.”

YOU MAY HAVE HAD A CHANCE:

“I just got us too tight in Stage Three and tried to be really aggressive to make up for it on that last restart. I had a shot at it but was a couple of rows too far back to start. I’m really proud of Hendrick Motorsports. To be 1-2-3 is really awesome. Our Ally Camaro was really good, especially in Stage Two. I just asked for the wrong adjustments probably. I’m excited with the way the year has started and hopefully we keep the momentum rolling next week at Phoenix.”

Race Results