Late caution flips script, hinders Hendrick’s chances at capping day with win

Posted on March 16, 2025March 17, 2025 by Dustin Albino

LAS VEGAS — It was deja vu for Hendrick Motorsports at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. For the second consecutive Cup Series race, it appeared to be boiling down to a fuel-mileage sprint to the finish.

When a caution flew on Lap 195 for a multicar pileup on the backstretch, Kyle Larson led a host of other frontrunners down pit road, including Hendrick teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott, along with Christopher Bell, Austin Cindric and Ross Chastain. Had the race stayed green to the finish after the restart, it would have been borderline whether the teams that stayed out could stretch their fuel tanks to the finish.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

“They were gambling that way unless they really thought they could make it and had way better mileage than we expected,” Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the No. 24 Chevrolet, told NASCAR.com. “We showed all of them not making it.”

Early in the run, both Chastain and Cindric jumped the Hendrick duo of Larson and Byron to seize track position. Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin both pitted under green, handing the lead to Joey Logano. Noah Gragson had a tire go down with 25 laps remaining, allowing the field to reset after a long run on tires. Daniel Suárez and Josh Berry cycled to the front row.

This was a familiar sight for Larson’s No. 5 team. Joey Logano won in October of 2024 at Las Vegas by gambling on fuel mileage.

“It was the same thing as the fall, just in the fall your crystal ball would have told you we would have cautions and we didn’t and today we did,” Cliff Daniels, crew chief of the No. 5 car, said. “That is literally the difference.

“That was the fuel window for us. You pit, now you can make it on fuel and the others guaranteed can’t. In the fall, I stayed at that yellow, knew I couldn’t make it on fuel, so I had to pit under green and spent all winter long beating myself up knowing that if I would have stayed out, we were going to be with the guys that ended up making it on fuel. In the fall, we could have had a top-three finish, and today, it went the exact opposite.”

Berry and Suárez battled for the lead after the final restart. Byron was elated with his positioning for the reset, but he couldn’t clear Chastain and dropped to fifth. When the checkered flag flew, the No. 24 car was fourth. Larson dropped to ninth in the finishing order.

“It sucks, but I felt like our car was good,” Byron said. “If it was a normal race playing out, I think it was a race between us, the 5 and 45. We struggled to maneuver in traffic too much, and that’s what caught us out there once the strategy flipped.”

Neither crew chief would have done anything differently, believing their strategy was the right call. The late caution fell at an untimely period.

“You don’t know how to play it — and it’s tough,” Fugle said. “It’s the way it is. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. With a couple things going differently, I think we would have a shot at the win. We will take a fourth with a good car and a lot to learn on and a lot to improve on to be better.”

Even scarier for the competition come the playoffs is that Larson felt better about the No. 5 car during this race — leading a race-high 61 laps — than he has in recent races in Sin City. Larson had won two of the previous three Vegas races entering this weekend. This is the first spring Las Vegas race that Hendrick did not win since 2020.

MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule

“What I take away from (today) is my car was good,” Larson said. “I think we were a little bit better than normal here, and we are pretty good here normally. I thought we had a stand-out car, especially out in the lead. The cautions and the flow of the race and the strategies changed and I wasn’t as good in traffic as I was earlier in the race. I also didn’t do as good of a job as I could on restarts, too. Proud of the race car. It’s just how it goes sometimes.”

All four Hendrick Motorsports cars sit inside the top six in the championship standings ahead of next Sunday’s Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Posted on March 16, 2025March 17, 2025 by John Crane

A litany of pit-road penalties, passes and late-race pushes resulted in Josh Berry prevailing over Daniel Suárez to capture the NASCAR Cup Series victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the first intermediate track on the 2025 schedule.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

Several drivers put together a momentum-shifting showing, while others took a turn for the worse at the Nevada track ahead of next Sunday’s Cup Series contest at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

THREE UP ⬆️

1. Ryan Preece, No. 60 RFK Racing Ford

Started: 12th

Finished: 3rd

What happened: Solid starting position to begin Sunday’s Las Vegas race didn’t immediately bear fruit on the points front, with Preece finishing 19th and 11th in Stages 1 and 2, respectively … not to mention a speeding penalty on pit road on Lap 33. A gradual grind through the final stage, in addition to a late-race battle between Ross Chastain and William Byron on Lap 254, allowed Preece to clinch the top-five result, tying his career-best Cup finish (Talladega spring, 2019). The finish also acted as Preece’s first top-five on a 1.5-mile track.

What’s next: Homestead-Miami is next on deck for Preece, where the 34-year-old Connecticut native has one career top 10, which came during the 2024 running at the track (10th).

Chris Graythen | Getty Images

2. AJ Allmendinger, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

Started: 18th

Finished: 8th

What happened: Something about 1.5-mile tracks has suited Allmendinger of late, with the 43-year-old pilot seizing his third consecutive top-10 finish on such a circuit, the best streak of his career. Solid positioning and speed did the trick, and while Allmendinger was unable to capitalize with enough speed during the waning laps to perhaps sneak into Victory Lane, the No. 16 pilot did collect stage points following a sixth-place result during the opening stage. A win might not have been in the cards, but the Kaulig crew will certainly take the points at this juncture of the season.

What’s next: Momentum could very well translate from one side of the country to the other for Allmendinger and the No. 16 crew. In 13 career Cup starts at Homestead-Miami, Allmendinger has tallied three top fives and six top 10s, including three consecutive top-eight results dating back to the 2022 season.

Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

3. Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Started: 6th

Finished: 7th

What happened: Through the early going, it looked as if Bowman was going to contend for the race win. After all, the No. 48 challenged Austin Cindric for the race lead on Lap 68 and eventually finished Stage 1 in second. Trouble began on Lap 90 for Bowman and Co. as the driver was forced to the pits on Lap 90 due to a vibration issue and additionally penalized for a pit-road speeding penalty on Lap 115. Late-race action, though, opened a window of opportunity for Bowman to work his way back to the front, and that he did.

What’s next: Homestead-Miami has been a roller coaster of sorts for the 31-year-old Arizona native. Dating back to 2019, Bowman has alternated a top-10 result with a non-top 10, with his seventh-place finish in October of 2024 being his best finish in nine career Cup tries. Trends dictate he’s bound to finish outside the top 10 this time around, but after a Las Vegas in-race rebound, don’t discount him from breaking the mold.

Chris Graythen | Getty Images

THREE DOWN ⬇️

1. Kyle Busch, No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Started: 4th

Finished: 33rd

What happened: A trendy pick to win at his hometown Las Vegas, Busch unfortunately was mired with one troubling issue after another. A lost right-rear tire — and subsequent skid into the backstretch wall on Lap 113 — began such conundrums. A two-lap penalty and garage time to fix the damage was next, and when the No. 8 returned to the track, Busch was penalized for entering too fast on pit road. The last salt to enter the wound came on Lap 242, where Busch bounced off the wall in Turn 2. A possible venue for a long-awaited race victory was not in the cards.

What’s next: There’s potentially good news for Busch and the No. 8 camp entering Homestead-Miami, where the two-time Cup Series champion has two victories, five top fives, 11 top 10s and 470 laps led in 20 career Cup starts. The bulk of this production came before the introduction of the Next Gen car, but experience matters, and Busch certainly has enough of it in his back pocket.

Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media

2. Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Started: 15th

Finished: 25th

What happened: Luck seemed to be on Hamlin’s side entering Sunday’s Vegas Cup race, and that was without even mentioning a slew of slot successes at the local casinos. A 15th-place starting position wasn’t anything superb, but for a talented driver like Hamlin — with 14 career Las Vegas top 10s — it seemed more than manageable. And while Hamlin rebounded from an early pit-road penalty to contend inside the top 10, the No. 11 was unable to make it stick, with the Toyota pilot pitting from fourth on Lap 232 and unable to make up the ground thereafter.

What’s next: Homestead-Miami has been collectively kind to Hamlin over the years, with the Florida native amassing three wins, six top fives, 13 top 10s, 449 laps led and six career pole positions at the track. Outside of a 30th-place finish there in 2023, Hamlin has finished 12th or better in 11 consecutive Miami Cup races. That’ll play.

Meg Oliphant | Getty Images

3. Erik Jones, No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota

Started: 5th

Finished: 27th

What happened: A fifth-place starting position was a swell start for the No. 43, and while Jones contended three-wide for the lead halfway through the race, the driver couldn’t make the speed stick. The culprit came on Lap 158 when the No. 43 got loose and dropped to ninth, with another spin during a Lap 195 incident putting a final damper on Jones’ day.

What’s next: Homestead-Miami has been a tricky track for Jones as the 28-year-old Michigan native has only one career top 10 at the facility in eight career Cup tries. Jones has finished 21st or worse in four of the last five Homestead-Miami contests dating back to 2020.

Chris Graythen | Getty Images

Posted on March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Staff Report

Christopher Bell fell short of netting a fourth consecutive NASCAR Cup Series win Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, finishing 12th.

Entering Sunday’s race, Bell dropped to the rear of the field after the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team elected to change a throttle body ahead of the event.

RELATED: Official race results | At-track photos

In Stage 1, Bell worked his way to a 10th-place result to a net a point but it was downhill from there.

Climbing as high as second, Bell had a handful of issues on pit road. Stopping for service under yellow, Bell’s crew didn’t get the left front wheel tight before the 30-year-old drove away. Crew chief Adam Stevens quickly caught it, instructing Bell to pull into the No. 19 pit box to tighten the wheel. The No. 20 team got hit with a penalty for pitting outside of the box, an infraction much less severe than if the wheel fell off on track.

With Bell mired in traffic the rest of the race, he wasn’t able to muster that same Stage 1 pace to get back to the front.

“It was a grind today for sure,” Bell said. “I don’t really know how I feel yet, but we certainly didn’t do what we did the last couple of weeks and that was just have a nice clean race. I think the Interstate Camry was definitely capable of competing for the win when we were at our best, but just going to the back and to the front and to the back and to the front, we just didn’t get a handle on the balance, because it changes so much from being back there.”

Bell will look to make it four wins in five races next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where he won in 2023 to make the Championship 4.

Posted on March 16, 2025March 17, 2025 by Reid Spencer

LAS VEGAS — Winning an intense battle against Daniel Suárez after a restart with 19 laps left, Josh Berry pulled away to a convincing victory in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The win was Berry’s first in the NASCAR Cup Series at a track where he won twice in a NASCAR Xfinity Series car. Berry is the fourth straight Wood Brothers Racing driver to pick up his first Cup win in the No. 21 Ford.

RELATED: Official race results | At-track photos

“Oh, man, I don’t even know what to think,” Berry said after climbing from his car on the frontstretch. “Just awesome. I love this track. Las Vegas has been so good to me. So many great moments here.

“Just struggled in the Next Gen car here. But (crew chief) Miles (Stanley) and this whole 21 team, everybody at Wood Brothers Racing, they gave me a great car today. Just battled and battled and battled. Man, it was our day. I just can’t believe it.

“Such a battle with Daniel there at the end, beating and banging on a mile-and-a-half — crazy! Whoever was going to get out front was probably going to win. We were able to get in front.”

Berry and Suárez restarted side-by-side on Lap 249 of 267. Suárez didn’t surrender the lead until Lap 252, when Berry nosed ahead at the start/finish line. Lap 253 was nearly a dead head with Berry ahead by inches, but the No. 21 Mustang cleared Suárez’s No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet through the tri-oval on Lap 254.

“We did everything right, you know?” Suárez said “The team did an amazing job on the strategy, pit stops. We did everything right. Our car was fast. We just struggled a little bit in the short run.

“I mentioned to my crew chief just a little bit ago, before the last run, I told him, ‘Hey, we want to be up front, I need a little bit better short run. I am having too much contact (with the bumps in the racing surface) in (Turns) 1 and 2.

“Unfortunately, I feel like that’s why we lost the race, just a little bit too much contact. I mean, I almost wrecked in 1 and 2.”

After clearing Suárez, Berry widened the gap in clean air and crossed the finish line 1.358 seconds ahead of the runner-up, earning a victory that also ended Christopher Bell’s three-race Cup winning streak.

SHOP: Winner’s gear

Berry got his chance when a Lap 195 caution for a seven-car wreck on the backstretch interrupted a cycle of green-flag pit stops and wrested control of the race from Stage 2 winner Kyle Larson, who had led 61 laps before pitting on Lap 197.

With the field flipped, Larson restarted 18th and could only work his way back to ninth before the race ended.

Berry, on the other hand, restarted seventh on Lap 201, worked the top of the track masterfully and snatched the lead from Suárez for the first time on Lap 234, before surrendering it to Cup champion Joey Logano two laps later.

Noah Gragson’s hard contact with the Turn 2 wall on Lap 243 caused the ninth and final caution of the race and took fuel consumption out of the equation. Suárez regained the lead with a blistering four-tire stop, with Berry second off pit road, as Logano lost 19 positions during a fraught pit stop.

But it didn’t take Berry long to set sail toward the 101st victory for the Wood Brothers, who got No. 100 last year at the hands of Harrison Burton.

Ryan Preece ran third on Sunday, followed by series leader William Byron, who paced a group of four Hendrick Motorsports drivers in the top 10. Tire strategy helped Ross Chastain secure fifth place.
Austin Cindric, Alex Bowman, AJ Allmendinger, Larson and Chase Elliott completed the top 10 on a day when pit road resembled a comedy of errors. Both Chase Briscoe and Kyle Busch jettisoned loose wheels onto the track, though Briscoe rebounded from four laps down to finish 17th.

In a race that featured 32 lead changes among 13 drivers, Austin Cindric was second to Larson in laps led with 47, followed by Logano with 40, Tyler Reddick with 34, Bubba Wallace with 20 and Berry with 18.

For practical purposes, Bell’s bid for a fourth straight Cup Series victory came to an end during pit stops under caution for Shane van Gisbergen’s spin off Turn 2 on Lap 107.

By then, Bell, who started from the rear because of an unapproved throttle body change, had advanced to second in the running order, but his front tire changer failed to secure the left-front wheel before Bell left his stall, located near the entrance to pit road.

After frantic radio communication, Bell pulled into the pit of teammate Chase Briscoe, where the front tire changer on the No. 19 team tightened the loose lug.

Bell dropped to the rear of the field under penalty for receiving service outside his pit box and could make no progress in dirty air after two subsequent restarts. His No. 20 Toyota was running 29th when the No. 34 Ford of Todd Gilliland bounced off the Turn 4 wall on Lap 147 to cause the fifth caution of the afternoon.

Complaining of a loss of rear grip, Bell finished Stage 2 in 27th place, his chances for a rare four-race winning streak all but gone.

Bell subsequently ran as high as sixth after a two-tire stop on Lap 189 to gain track position, but he lost spots when the field flipped for the Lap 201 restart and could only recover to 12th at the finish.

NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Cup Series garage, confirming Berry as the winner. The Nos. 1, 2, 20 and 24 are returning to the Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.

Posted on March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Zach Sturniolo

An up-and-down day for Ryan Blaney hit rock bottom as the No. 12 Team Penske driver was involved in a multicar wreck on Lap 196 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The No. 12 Ford was in the midst of a four-wide battle exiting Turn 2 during a final stage restart in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race. Space eventually ran out as Blaney collided with Noah Gragson and Bubba Wallace. Erik Jones was also involved and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun a ways back from the incident.

After being evaluated and released from Las Vegas’ infield care center for the second time in as many days, Blaney explained a miscommunication may have led to the melee.

Before the wreckage, Wallace ran inside the top five up until the mishap. The No. 23 23XI Racing driver finished fourth in both Stage 1 and Stage 2 to collect 14 points on the day. He resumed following the incident and finished one lap down in 28th.

“Yeah, we were four-wide there, and honestly, I thought I had two (cars) inside and one outside of me,” Blaney said. “And I watched one little replay, and I had two outside, one inside, so I have to go back and see if I heard it wrong or if there was some miscommunication. I feel like I probably pitched those guys to the fence along the two, so it was probably my fault.”

Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media

After a practice crash Saturday forced him to start from the rear Sunday, Blaney methodically worked his way through the field to collect five points in Stage 2. It wasn’t a one-way trip to the front, however. The No. 12 Team Penske team had a slow stop on the first pit cycle that trapped Blaney two laps down, and the 2023 Cup champion had once again worked his way up to race with the leaders and was running inside the top 10 when the final-stage wreck triggered.

At the end of the first stage and trapped a lap down and reminded by crew chief Jonathan Hassler to keep fighting, an exasperated Blaney radioed: “I’m tired of fighting. Just want [expletive] to go right. But I’ll keep trying for you.”

Sunday’s DNF marked Blaney’s second in a row after a blown engine the week before at Phoenix Raceway. It’s also Blaney’s third consecutive finish of 19th or worse in the opening five races.

“You try to take the best you can out of it, even though it just ended poorly,” Blaney said. “Fought from the beginning in the race, get to 15th, 16th. Have a terrible pit stop, 30-second pit stop. Got two laps down. Takes a while to get back on the lead lap. Finally get going. Finally get to the top five, it’s like, all right, I think our car is really good. And then wrecked.”

The No. 12 team attempted to fix the vehicle in the garage after the crash, but eventually determined it could not return to competition.

“Just one of those weekends it seems like nothing could really go right,” Blaney said. “But you stick with it, stay in the game and the sun will come up tomorrow and we’ll be at the race track next week. That’s all you can do. But it is frustrating. It’s easy to get down. I just want to go home honestly and hang out with my wife tonight and just not think about racing for the evening and be ready to go Monday morning.”

Blaney and the NASCAR Cup Series will be back in action Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Posted on March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Nick Giffen

With practice and qualifying out of the way for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it’s time to re-evaluate the board now that we have weekend data to analyze.

One driver in particular stood out to me compared to their betting odds after an up and down practice session that saw him end up in the wall after some eye-popping practice times.

Let’s dive in.

The first of the two practice groups experienced a bit of an interruption as Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney smacked the wall after completing 18 practice laps.

As a result, Blaney was unable to make a qualifying lap and will start the race dead last, in 36th place. The team elected to repair the car after the wreck, so he’ll still be in the same vehicle that posted some blistering lap times in practice.

MORE: Blaney spins, damages car in Las Vegas practice

The No. 12 car started off a bit slow, turning laps that ranked in the 50th to 70th percentile in speed compared to the fastest car on each lap. However, by Lap 10, his car really came to life. From that point forward, Blaney was the fastest car in his practice group on eight of the next nine laps. And even when factoring in the second practice group — which can be a bit tricky due to different track conditions — he was the fastest car on each driver’s 10th through 18th lap on all but two occasions.

On those other two laps, he still ranked as the second- or third-fastest car. Looking at those nine laps as a whole, Blaney posted a FLAGS rating of 99.3%. To put that into perspective, William Byron led all cars in FLAGS for the entire practice session at 89.2%, a full 10 percentage points lower on a 0-100 scale.

For further context, during those nine laps, Blaney was nearly two-tenths of a second per lap faster than the next fastest drivers, William Byron (from Group 2) and Carson Hocevar (from Blaney’s Group 1), who each averaged a 29.89-second lap over that stretch. That means over the course of nine laps, Blaney would have built a 1.7-second lead over both drivers.

As of midday Sunday (ET), DraftKings is offering Blaney at 14-1 odds to win. My model sets his fair value at +1225, so DraftKings is one of — if not the only — places where I’m seeing value in betting on Blaney.

My Pick: Ryan Blaney to win (+1400 at DraftKings) | Bet to: +1300

Posted on March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Staff Report

Corey Day won a hotly anticipated Kubota High Limit Racing event on Saturday night in Las Vegas, besting a star-studded field that included a runner-up finish by Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson and Ty Gibbs’ impressive charge into the A-Main ending early after a flip.

Day, 19, is a phenom in the racing world and in January signed a multiyear development deal with Hendrick Motorsports that puts him in a part-time Xfinity Series schedule, plus additional part-time work in the Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series in partnership with Spire Motorsports. Day, who won the pole for Friday’s Truck race at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway, benefited Saturday from Daryn Pittman appearing to run out of fuel with seven laps remaining, causing a caution on Lap 24 and setting up a sprint to the finish of the 30-lap event.

Earlier in the week, the event was billed as another Larson vs. Christopher Bell showdown. Poor weather in the area, though, delayed the event until Saturday night, and Bell was unable to compete. Still, Larson vs. Day was a battle between perhaps the pre-eminent Hendrick Motorsports driver today and the company’s future in Day.

Gibbs, meanwhile, is mired in a wicked NASCAR Cup Series slump to start the season but his talent was on display in his first-ever sprint race. He qualified through the field to make the A-Main before going for a flip in the opening laps.

Larson starts 10th in today’s Cup Series race at Las Vegas (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) while Gibbs rolls off 29th.

Posted on March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Dustin Albino

LAS VEGAS – The 2024 NASCAR season was beyond challenging for Legacy Motor Club.

The two-car team, led by majority owner and seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, went to work over the offseason to make the necessary hires and continue building the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ to improve for the 2025 season.

Included in the change was a mentality shift for driver John Hunter Nemechek. Instead of overstepping his boundaries and stretching for an extra position or two on the results sheet, he instead needed to focus on just reaching the checkered flag, as the No. 42 Toyota failed to finish six races in 2024. According to Racing Insights, Nemechek was also the driver involved in the second-most cautions over the 36-race schedule.

Through the opening month of the 2025 season, Nemechek already has a pair of top-10 finishes. In addition to finishing 14th last weekend at Phoenix Raceway, he’s halfway to his top-15 total from 2024.

RELATED: Nemechek driver page | Photos from Vegas

“I feel like I’ve been super focused on the race cars showing up to the race track and putting all my effort in there,” Nemechek said Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the stats and points and all that stuff; I don’t want to get caught up in all of that. I think it’s better for me to go into the weekend and know that I need to execute the way that we should as a team. And for myself to be better and continue to push myself to be better as well as the team.”

Putting complete races together has been the primary emphasis for Nemechek. If the team lacks speed early in the race, it’s up to him to relay what he’s feeling to his new crew chief Travis Mack to make the correct adjustments.

Race craft is important to Nemechek as well, and it’s something he continues to progress at.

“You look at our days at Daytona, Atlanta, COTA and Phoenix; they’ve been up and down days,” he added. “We’ve been towards the front, we’ve been in the middle of the pack and been towards the back. We’ve been able to rebound most of the time to get back up to mid pack and have solid results.

“I feel like I was not very good at that last year, so I’m trying to execute and finish races. When we feel like we have a 20th-place car, we need to go finish 20th with it. I don’t need to finish 22nd, let’s finish 20th or a little bit better if everything works out. I feel way better coming into this year for sure.”

The next area of improvement for the No. 42 team is qualifying. Nemechek qualified 30th for Sunday but will drop to the rear at the start of the race due to the team electing to change a throttle body. Meanwhile, his Legacy Motor Club teammate and series veteran Erik Jones qualified fifth for the second consecutive week.

But when it comes to race day, Nemechek has bettered Jones in the finishing order all four weeks to start 2025.

“I feel like in the race, Travis and I and the whole 42 team is able to execute,” Nemechek noted. “Phoenix last week, we didn’t have a lot of speed, and it was an up and down day for us and we continued to work on our car throughout the day and we ended up being able to get ourselves to the point where we got inside the top 10 late and salvaged a 14th-place finish out of it. I think that’s how our year has been so far. We’ve been able to execute late in the races and finish it off where we feel like we should.”

Jones has seen Nemechek mature on the track. He also believes that expectations were likely too high for Nemechek in his first season with Legacy, as he was returning to the Cup Series full-time for the first time since 2020.

“I know John Hunter had one year in Cup, but it was with the old car, so it was more like being a rookie again,” Jones said. “Trying to learn all of that was tough just because our cars weren’t how they needed to be and he’s trying to learn and figure it out. I think there was some heat put on him, unfairly in some ways. I hope this year, with our cars being better, he can take advantage of that and learn more.”

With three wild card races in the opening four weeks of the season, Legacy should have a better indication of where it stacks up following Sunday’s event at Las Vegas. Nemechek ranked 30th in practice and 24th on 10-lap averages.

But with the mindset shift and new hires, Nemechek knows the team has a baseline to begin the new year.

“I don’t know how much better we are than last year, but the culture is better, the team is better,” Nemechek stated. “Everyone is jelling, everyone has a great attitude and it’s been a lot of hard work through the offseason. I feel like overall it’s neat to get to the race track and show speed and be able to run well.”

Posted on March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 by Alex Cadavid

Projections have been updated after practice and qualifying on Saturday.

Another weekend came and went with Christopher Bell in Victory Lane … again. Which leaves us with one big question: Who can slow down Bell and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team?

Bell became the first driver in the Next Gen era to win three races in a row and the first driver to accomplish that feat since Kyle Larson in 2021. Looking ahead to Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio), we should expect Bell and Larson to be right up front again, duking it out for the win.

RELATED: Las Vegas schedule

We know the two drivers had a rivalry growing up on dirt tracks, which has somewhat followed them to the Cup Series in a handful of close battles for the win. One of those bouts came at the 2023 Las Vegas fall race, where Bell was tracking down Larson in the closing laps but had to settle for second by just 0.082 seconds. This year, however, feels as though the tables have turned. Larson has already finished third in two of Bell’s wins this season and is chasing the No. 20 Toyota across the board in the driver standings.

A quick tale of the tape between these two stars, especially at intermediate tracks, means both Bell and Larson will be the ones to beat at Las Vegas.

In the red corner, there’s Bell, a three-time winner with eyes dead-set on four in a row. He has five straight top-10 finishes on 1.5-mile tracks — tied for the longest active streak — and has won the pole in three of the last five races on intermediates. Bell has also netted a top-10 finish at Las Vegas in half of his 10 starts there. More recently, he’s turned in three top-five performances in the last four races in Nevada.

In the blue corner, there’s Larson, who has won two of the last three Las Vegas races. His average start (7.2) and finish (9.4) rank best out of all drivers and has led 629 laps at Las Vegas, which ranks second all-time to Kevin Harvick. Larson also has eight wins on intermediates since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021 and has led laps in 13 of the last 14 races on 1.5-mile tracks.

FANTASY: Set your lineup | Make 36 for 36 pick

OTHER DRIVERS TO WATCH

ROSS CHASTAIN: Another driver who has been consistently good in the Sin City is Chastain. He has five top 10s in the last six races there and a 5.5 average finish at the track in the Next Gen car, which leads all drivers across that span.

TYLER REDDICK: Reddick has five top 10s in the last seven Las Vegas races, including a runner-up effort in this race last year. Reddick does have three wins on intermediate tracks in his Cup career, plus he already has finishes of second and third, so a win is on the horizon.

ALEX BOWMAN: It may not be three wins, but Bowman is also off to a hot start to the season with three top 10s. Like Bell, he has also finished in the top 10 in half of 10 starts at Las Vegas and shares the longest active streak for five top 10s on intermediate tracks.

JOEY LOGANO: Logano is the first defending champ to not record a top-10 finish through a season’s first four races. His luck, though, should change at Las Vegas, a track where he owns four wins — tied with Jimmie Johnson for the most — including his triumph there last fall.

JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK: Nemechek is off to a solid start through the first four weeks with an average finish of 12.75 and two top 10s. He’s won at Las Vegas in both the Xfinity and Trucks Series, plus his ninth-place finish at Las Vegas last fall is his best finish on 1.5-mile tracks at the Cup level. UPDATE: However, he — along with Bell — will start Sunday’s race from the rear.

RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE PENNZOIL 400 PRESENTED BY JIFFY LUBE

Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results. Updated on raceday with practice and qualifying factored in.

FINISH	CAR NUMBER	DRIVER
1	24	William Byron
2	5	Kyle Larson
3	20	Christopher Bell
4	11	Denny Hamlin
5	48	Alex Bowman
6	45	Tyler Reddick
7	1	Ross Chastain
8	17	Chris Buescher
9	12	Ryan Blaney
10	8	Kyle Busch
11	22	Joey Logano
12	9	Chase Elliott
13	23	Bubba Wallace
14	99	Daniel Suárez
15	16	AJ Allmendinger
16	2	Austin Cindric
17	4	Noah Gragson
18	6	Brad Keselowski
19	77	Carson Hocevar
20	43	Erik Jones
21	21	Josh Berry
22	60	Ryan Preece
23	71	Michael McDowell
24	19	Chase Briscoe
25	3	Austin Dillon
26	42	John H. Nemechek
27	54	Ty Gibbs
28	38	Zane Smith
29	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
30	41	Cole Custer
31	7	Justin Haley
32	88	Shane van Gisbergen
33	10	Ty Dillon
34	34	Todd Gilliland
35	51	Cody Ware
36	35	Riley Herbst

Posted on March 15, 2025March 16, 2025 by Staff Report

Christopher Bell, in search of his fourth consecutive win in the NASCAR Cup Series, will start Sunday’s race from the rear after a mechanical issue on his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after qualifying, a team spokesperson confirmed.

John Hunter Nemechek will also start from the rear for a mechanical change on his No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota, a team spokesperson confirmed. FOX Sports first reported the news. NASCAR updated the list of those set to start at the rear during pre-race on Sunday, with Ryan Blaney (DNQ), Riley Herbst and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (unapproved adjustments) also being sent to the back.

MORE: Sunday’s starting lineup | At-track photos: Vegas

The two Toyota teams indicated trouble with the throttle body during their respective qualifying efforts. Bell had time-trialed the 13th-best lap, while Nemechek was scheduled to start 30th.

Because of the change, both will be forced to start from the rear for unapproved adjustments.

Bell, who sits second in points, has won each of the past three Cup races with victories at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Circuit of The Americas and Phoenix Raceway. He will attempt to score a fourth straight win on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The last driver to accomplish the feat was seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson in 2007.

Nemechek ranks 13th in the points standings through four races with one top five and two top 10s in the opening quartet of events.