The first of nine traditional 1.5-mile races on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule begins Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), with the data projecting the usual intermediate aces to hold the winning cards.
Joe Gibbs Racing staked a claim during Saturday’s qualifying session, with Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs wheeling fast Toyotas en route to a 1-2-3 start in Sunday’s race. Despite this, Racing Insights has a Hendrick Motorsports driver — Kyle Larson — collecting the checkered flag. Five Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing drivers (Larson, Bell, Hamlin, Byron, Elliott) are projected to finish inside the top 10, which, if the predictions ring true, will continue a stretch of dominance for both organizations on 1.5-mile tracks.
Here is how the rest of the field stacks up heading into Sunday’s race.
RYAN PREECE: The No. 60 RFK Racing Ford looks to continue a strong start to 2026, with the metrics predicting a 10th-place result at Las Vegas. Preece’s 16.3 average finish through the first four races to begin the season is his best start to a campaign since 2021 (12.8), not to mention the 35-year-old Connecticut native has been on a bit of a roll at Las Vegas, finishing inside the top 10 in both races there in 2025, including a third-place result last March. Preece’s eighth-place start is his best beginning position so far in 2026 and his first career top-10 start at Las Vegas.
BUBBA WALLACE: If there is an organization best equipped to overtake the Joe Gibbs-Hendrick Motorsports brigade in Las Vegas, it could be 23XI Racing. Look no further than Wallace and the No. 23 camp; while the team is projected to finish 12th at Las Vegas, there is positive momentum going for them. Wallace’s 8.8 average finish to begin 2026 is his best career start to a season, and while his last six races on 1.5-mile tracks have yielded mixed results (two top fives, four finishes of 22nd or worse), you can’t discount playing the hot hand. Wallace will start fourth, his best career start in Sin City.
AUSTIN DILLON: The No. 3 Richard Childress Racing driver will start just outside the top 10 on Sunday (11th), and while the metrics project a finish outside the top 20 (22nd), it is entirely possible this fortune can be reversed for the better. Las Vegas is the only 1.5-mile track where Dillon has multiple top-five finishes in Cup.
FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR 2026 PENNZOIL 400 PRESENTED BY JIFFY LUBE (4 P.M. ET, FS1)
LAS VEGAS — Kyle Busch expects to use Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as a barometer for intermediate tracks later in the 2026 schedule, but the fit won’t be precise.
“Yeah, just to kind of get a basis, I guess, of where you stack up against the field,” Busch said of Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “Your setup here at Vegas is not the same as Kansas, Texas, Charlotte or any of those.
“You’re pretty different at each one of these race tracks that you go to, so trying to pinpoint what allows us to be quicker and what allows us to be further up the pylon to compete — that’s what we’ve got to work on here this weekend to get ourselves in tune with the rest of the year.”
Busch showed excellent speed at Las Vegas in last year’s spring event, before his race fell apart.
“Last year here, this race was really good for us,” said Busch, whose winless streak at Richard Childress Racing has reached 97 races as he comes to his home track. “I thought we had really good speed. I think we qualified in the top 10 (fourth in fact). We were running fourth. We had a bad pit stop, and then we had a loose wheel, lost a tire, all that sort of stuff.
“So it just kind of derailed after the first time we hit pit road. Can’t have all that happen. Hopefully, we can have some of the same speed that we had here and go from there.”
LAS VEGAS – With a blistering lap at 187.156 mph in Saturday’s time trials at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell claimed the pole position for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Bell navigated the 1.5-mile intermediate track in 28.853 seconds to beat Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin (186.188 mph) for the top starting spot by 0.150 seconds.
The Busch Light Pole Award was Bell’s first of the season, his fourth at Las Vegas and the 15th of his Cup Series career.
With JGR’s Ty Gibbs qualifying third at 185.803 mph and 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace fourth at 185.771 mph, Toyota swept the top four starting spots in a race for the seventh time in the manufacturer’s history in the Cup Series, with the previous most recent occurrence coming at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last year.
This was the second straight Las Vegas race in which Toyotas have started 1-2-3, with Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Bell doing the honors in qualifying last fall.
“It was pretty simple, really,” Bell said of his qualifying lap. “It takes a lot of commitment here at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to qualify well. My team got their Ps and Qs right. We had a lot of grip, and I held my foot down, and we won the pole.”
Bell’s car seemed unbothered by the troublesome Turn 1 bumps that upset the efforts of more than a few other competitors.
“It’s a compromise,” Bell explained. “Every time you come to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it’s a compromise of getting your car to have as much grip as you can have in (Turns) 3 and 4 without the bump hindering you in (Turns) 1 and 2.
“Anytime you make the car drive better across the bumps, you’re giving up performance on the smooth part of the race track, and my team nailed it.”
Reigning series champion Kyle Larson (185.548 mph) qualified fifth in the fastest Chevrolet, with Phoenix winner Ryan Blaney (185.185 mph) claiming the sixth spot on the grid in the top Ford.
Series leader Tyler Reddick, winner of the first three races this season, will start seventh, followed by Ryan Preece, William Byron and Chris Buescher.
Defending race winner Josh Berry qualified 32nd in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.
Bell fastest in practice
Like qualifying, JGR drivers led the way in practice, with Bell topping the leaderboard at 184.062 mph and Denny Hamlin (183.436 mph) setting the second-quickest lap time.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (183.299 mph), Wallace (183.175 mph) and John Hunter Nemechek (183.069 mph) rounded out the top five.
LAS VEGAS — Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman will sit out a second consecutive week as the NASCAR Cup Series descends upon Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday for the fifth race of the 2026 season (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Days after exiting the No. 48 Chevrolet during the race at Circuit of The Americas, Hendrick Motorsports revealed Bowman was dealing with a vertigo bout and missed the following event at Phoenix Raceway. Hendrick simulation driver Anthony Alfredo filled in for Bowman at the Arizona track, and 2024 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champ Justin Allgaier will pilot the No. 48 around the 1.5-mile Nevada oval this weekend.
During Saturday media availabilities at Las Vegas, both William Byron and Chase Elliott spoke about their teammate and extended well wishes to Bowman as he continues his recovery.
“Obviously, we’re very supportive of him and hope that he can get back here really soon,” Byron said. “As a competitor, I hate to see him go through that. Everyone just wants to be able to show up every week and continue to kind of work on things and improve and not have those hiccups in the road. As a teammate, I just want to see him back at the track, but kind of give him the space to go through what he needs to go through.”
Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series titleholder, knows what it is like being out of the car. Elliott missed the spring race at Las Vegas in 2023 due to a fractured tibia and sat out the following five races amid recovery.
While Elliott said he offers support from afar, he wants to reaffirm that Bowman’s absence is missed at the track.
“You want to let the guy know that he is supported and missed,” Elliott said. “I enjoy working with Alex. I think he knows that without me saying anything, but I do think it is probably nice to reaffirm that to him. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything for him. That’s a tough spot. But yeah, try to lend support where you can. Just let the guy know you miss working with him, and hope he gets it all sorted out.
“You never know what’s going to happen or what tomorrow brings, or what something today can impact tomorrow. I hate he’s going through it. Just hope we can obviously help, first and foremost. Just hope he can get some answers to the questions that he has and get him back here at the track soon.”
Four NASCAR Cup Series teams were levied penalties for multiple failures during pre-race inspection Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the sanctioning body announced.
NASCAR officials ejected the car chiefs of the Nos. 2, 10, 16 and 24 teams ahead of Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The team members exiting Las Vegas are as follows:
Eric Bailey, No. 2 Team Penske Ford.
Troy Lankford Jr., No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.
Jaron Antley, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.
Jacob Bowman, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Additionally, drivers Austin Cindric (No. 2), Ty Dillon (No. 10), AJ Allmendinger (No. 16) and William Byron (No. 24) will lose pit selection for the 267-lap event in the Nevada desert. Byron is a former springtime winner at the track (2023).
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers will pit this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series head to the Nevada high desert with the first of two trips to Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2026. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.
Ty Gibbs, driver of the No. 54 NASCAR Cup Series Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, suffered a scary flip during a High Limit Racing sprint car event Thursday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Battling for third in his heat race, Gibbs got a run on the outside of NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series full-timer Corey Day, but the two made contact in the middle of the corner. The 23-year-old barrel rolled multiple times before striking the catchfence, finally coming to rest on its side. Gibbs climbed out of his Monster Energy car uninjured. It’s the second year in a row Gibbs has flipped at Las Vegas on the dirt side.
“I’m fine. I think Corey just got super loose in the slick there,” Gibbs told FloRacing. “We’re good. Just unfortunate. We’ll come back up [Friday] and go get ’em.”
Thursday night’s SugarBee Blackjack Bash at Las Vegas served as the season opener for High Limit Racing, a series owned by two-time Cup champion Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet. Larson won the main while Day finished second. Brent Crews, another O’Reilly Series regular, finished fourth.
High Limit Racing spends two more nights at Las Vegas, part of the lead-up to Sunday afternoon’s Cup Series race in Sin City (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The following column appears on NASCAR’s Substack and is being shared in full on NASCAR.com this week. Subscribe to our Substack to read Nate Ryan’s weekly column, NASCARCASM’s fake texts, chat live each week with writers Zach Sturniolo and Cameron Richardson, and much more.
With Alex Bowman’s status again indefinite as NASCAR heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it’s a good time to note this track is another mark of his redoubtable resilience.
Bowman was racing a midget car on the slick LVMS Dirt Track in February 2010 when his left front caught a big tractor tire used to mark the course’s inside boundary. His car flipped several times, leaving the 16-year-old with a few broken ribs, punctured lungs, two broken collarbones and burst blood vessels in his eyes.
He spent roughly a week in intensive care.
“I just remember waking up in the hospital and wondering if there was another race the next day,” Bowman said during a 2017 episode of the NASCAR on NBC Podcast. “I was like, ‘Can we fix the car?’ ‘No, they cut you out of it with the JAWS of life.’ Oh. Can we get another car?”
Bowman admittedly rushed his recovery, returning in five weeks rather than the doctor’s recommended 10.
“It wasn’t that scary, because I don’t remember the crash,” Bowman said. “It doesn’t really bother me. I feel it might if I remembered it, but I got knocked out pretty quickly as it was flipping. That probably helped me out a little bit. It was interesting.”
Many descriptors would encapsulate Bowman’s racing journey, and “interesting” certainly would be one.
Others that might fit (aside from “generally successful” ): Adverse. Eventful. Unlucky.
Perhaps the simplest way to put it: Bowman, 32, is the most star-crossed Cup Series winner of his generation.
In eight seasons at Hendrick Motorsports, he has seven playoff appearances and eight victories, but also a notable string of misfortune that consistently seems to overshadow his success in NASCAR’s premier series.
“I called my manager, and he’s like, ‘What are you talking about?'” Bowman told The Athletic in 2020. “I’m like, ‘Twitter says I’m fired, man! Call people!’ It took hours to get ahold of anybody. I didn’t go to the shop, obviously, because I was like, ‘Well, this is going to be super awkward if I just walk in there.'”
Bowman turned it into a positive by using his extra time to become the simulator driver at Hendrick Motorsports. Six months later, when Dale Earnhardt Jr. was benched by a concussion, Bowman was in the No. 88 Chevrolet for 10 of the final 17 races of the season. He drove well enough to win the ride when Earnhardt retired after 2017.
He steadily improved with the best team in NASCAR. By his fourth season, Bowman had a personal-best four victories in 2021.
But his last win that season was tainted by a run-in while racing for the lead with six laps remaining at Martinsville Speedway. He made contact with Denny Hamlin, who spun and called the No. 48 driver “an absolute hack” (reinforcing the stereotype that Bowman backs into his victories).
The 2021 season would be a competitive peak for Bowman, who would miss five races with a concussion during the 2022 playoffs and then be benched for three more in 2023 because of a fractured vertebra in a sprint car crash.
Logan Riely | Getty Images
Amid rumblings that his No. 48 Chevrolet ride was on the line in 2024, he scored a victory in the Chicago Street Race that quieted the speculation until it began to pick up again entering this season.
Which is a shame, because in many ways, Bowman is a great fit at Hendrick Motorsports, an organization that at times has struggled to find the perfect dynamic since expanding to a fourth car 22 years ago.
During that span, it seemed as if one driver – whether Earnhardt, Casey Mears, Kasey Kahne or Brian Vickers – was an outlier whose lagging results got juxtaposed with the sterling performance of current and future Hall of Famers.
Teamed with NASCAR’s most popular driver (Chase Elliott), one of the world’s most versatile stars (Kyle Larson) and a likely future Cup champion (William Byron), Bowman has managed to hold his own by winning races while being happy with a relatively low profile.
An introvert with an appealingly acerbic and deadpan sense of humor (“I like dogs more than people”), he’s the perfect fourth driver for Hendrick.
Many would take that as a backhanded compliment, but it’s just reality for Bowman, who rarely takes anything personally. He’s the self-deprecating sort who turned Hamlin’s “Hack” dig into a popular T-shirt and never seems discouraged or distracted by the rumors he’s on the edge of losing his job.
His mantra is that “every year is a contract year,” and it’s a survival instinct that has served him well over the years of never-ending curveballs to his NASCAR future.
“It doesn’t really matter the situation, I’ve never felt 100% secure,” Bowman said.
Until he returns to the No. 48 – and very likely afterward – there undoubtedly will be whispers again about what’s next. This is a contract year for a driver who has made a career of proving himself amid difficult circumstances.
It might be his toughest comeback yet … but don’t bet against Alex Bowman.
Even when the odds are stacked against him, he’s shown a stubborn persistence in always beating them.
The first four races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season included two drafting tracks, a high-speed, technical road course, followed by a 1-mile oval with an emphasis on tire conservation. All told, that creates many variables where, if they don’t play their cards right, drivers could face a significant early-season points deficit.
As outlined by Neil Paine, several competitors are off to rocky starts and could be on the verge of smashing the early panic button. But conversely, a group of seven in the Cup Series are off to significantly better starts compared to this point last year — on the same set of tracks, too.
Courtesy of Racing Insights, see which much-improved drivers are already in solid spots ahead of the first 1.5-mile race of the season Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Reddick pretty much goes without saying, but his three straight wins to open the 2026 season — including the Daytona 500, of course — position him incredibly well for a deep run through the 2026 Chase. His eighth-place finish last weekend at Phoenix Raceway dropped his average finish on the campaign to a whopping 2.8, but in comparison, his start to 2025 certainly wasn’t bad. Reddick earned a pair of top threes over the first four races last year, averaging out to 11.2 after Phoenix (8.2 spots better).
The No. 45 23XI Racing driver has a 60-point lead in the Cup Series standings, down from 70 after Ryan Blaney’s win last weekend. But surviving three “wild card” races and adding a strong run in the desert makes him the early championship favorite, and he’ll be afforded some slip-ups down the road.
“[We] scored the fourth most amount of points on the day. That’s kind of what we need to keep doing all year to keep the lead that we have and try and hang on to it,” Reddick said after his win streak was snapped Sunday. “If we’re not going to win, these are the kind of days we need to have.”
Ryan Preece
Preece got the proverbial monkey off his back with his first Cup Series win of any type in February’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. And while it’s still early, it certainly seems like that momentum has carried over to the regular season. The No. 60 RFK Racing driver has three top 20s through four races, including a ninth-place finish at EchoPark Speedway. That averages out to a 16.3 finish, 8.2 spots better than last year through Phoenix.
For reference, Preece missed the playoffs by 67 points in 2025 after starting 24th in points through four races (although he earned the 16th most points through the regular season). He’s currently 18th in points, but with several short tracks coming up — as well as Las Vegas, where he finished third in the spring — Preece’s early gains could prove worthy toward his first Chase bid.
Ty Gibbs
The opening two drafting tracks didn’t go to plan for Gibbs, but a pair of fourth-place finishes at Circuit of The Americas and Phoenix the last two weeks have quickly turned the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota’s misfortunes around. Gibbs got off to a miserable start in 2025, scoring just one finish better than 22nd over the first six weeks. But compared to the first four races, the 23-year-old is 9.2 spots better than 2025, averaging a 17.0 average finish through Phoenix to open 2026.
Similar to Preece, Gibbs’ rough start last year ultimately took him out of contention for a playoff spot, but with the Chase format — and already sitting 15th in points — the fourth-year driver has his sights set on a bounce-back year.
“I’m with the right guys. That makes a difference. So we’re running good because of that,” Gibbs said Sunday at Phoenix. “Really happy with my team, everybody has done a great job, everybody believes in me, we all believe in each other.”
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Shane van Gisbergen
Watch out, folks. The king of the road course is starting to get this oval thing figured out.
Through four races, SVG sits fifth in points, and the way he’s gotten there is nothing short of impressive. After crashing in the Daytona 500 and finishing 30th, the Kiwi ripped off three consecutive finishes of 11th or better, highlighted by a runner-up at COTA — his bread and butter. But at both EchoPark in February and Phoenix last weekend, the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing driver spun twice in each race, yet still recovered for strong points days. His average finish thus far is 12.3, 11 spots better than last year, and is a remarkable 14 spots better in points.
Phoenix started a stretch of seven consecutive races that are featured again on the schedule during The Chase, and SVG clearly improves exponentially each time he revisits an oval. If this trend continues, the Cup Series field could be in trouble.
AJ Allmendinger
Speaking of road-course kings, Allmendinger is off to his own stellar start in 2026, amplified by Kaulig Racing’s current state. With the organization adding a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series program under Ram’s support, Kaulig is without a technical alliance for its two Cup Series Chevrolets — but you couldn’t tell. Allmendinger hasn’t finished worse than 19th through four races, averaging a result of 14.8 — 12 spots better than 2025. He’s 13th in points, while teammate Ty Dillon sits a respectable 21st.
Allmendinger doesn’t instantly come to mind as a contender to make The Chase, but his ability to survive attrition-filled races and maximize days — especially at road courses — gives the No. 16 driver a chance to remain in the mix. The next five races on traditional ovals will tell us more about how much speed the 44-year-old has in his third full-time season in the team’s Cup program.
Bubba Wallace
Consistency is often key for Wallace, but so far, so good. The No. 23XI Racing driver hasn’t finished worse than 11th all season, and that includes conquering his road-course demons two weeks ago at COTA. Compared to teammate Reddick, Wallace’s results are unheralded — but by all means impressive. His average finish sits at 8.8, 13 spots better than 2025 through Phoenix. He ranks third in points.
Recognizing the youth of the 2026 season, it leads to wonder: Is this finally Wallace’s breakout season? His results have always been stout since joining 23XI in 2021, but the Mobile, Alabama, native has never won more than one race a season. It seems like all the ingredients are finally there for the series veteran, and his strong start positions Wallace well for what could be a deep, championship-contending run.
Brad Keselowski
Considering the circumstances, Keselowski’s off to an extraordinary start this season, and comes home as the most improved driver through four races. He’s battled the lingering effects of a broken femur in December, an injury that forced him to miss The Clash and put the start of his 2026 season in jeopardy.
But the 42-year-old has raced seemingly unfazed, despite a noticeable limp and walking cane. He nearly won the Daytona 500 before coming home fifth, but over four races, he has finished no worse than 20th — despite a practice crash last Saturday at Phoenix that set the No. 6 team back. Keselowski’s average finish is 14.3, a whopping 14 spots better compared to this point last year. It took the RFK Racing driver and co-owner 12 races to earn a top five in 2025, a difficult stretch that ultimately led to Keselowski missing the playoffs. But Keselowski’s solid run out of the gate could prove meaningful long-term as the 2012 series champion regains full health.
“Driving the race car is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it provides the motivation for me to really push my rehab and do things faster than normal, which is not a bad thing. But it’s a curse because, yes, when I get in the car, it does hurt, it does pull me backwards,” Keselowski said in a Wednesday teleconference, explaining the recovery from his injury. “The long airplane flights to the West Coast and the crash on Saturday were not my friends, so I’ll spend most of this week trying to get back to where I was before I left for Phoenix, and hopefully by Thursday or Friday, before I leave for Vegas, I’ll be ahead of where I was last week.”
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series The LiUNA! on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (5:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
