AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kyle Larson finished third at Phoenix Raceway for the third straight time Sunday. The last time he did, the result clinched his second NASCAR Cup Series championship in last season’s finale. This time around, the rally was admirable, but the struggle was real.
Larson scored his best finish of the young Cup Series season in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500, but the eventual top-five outcome belied the early-on challenges that the reigning champ and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet faced. While it was an overall positive in the results column, Larson said he was hoping for more at the 1-mile Arizona oval.
“Was not expecting that with how bad we were,” Larson said on pit road post-race, “but again, proud of the team, and yeah, just got to get a lot better here. It’s rewarding to run like (expletive) all day and finish third, but I would love to come here and control our own destiny and lead laps, get stage points, all that sort of stuff, and then get a good finish.”
Larson’s day started with promise from the front row alongside polesitter Joey Logano, but by the end of the first stage — on the 60th of 312 laps — he faded from second to 13th place. During the stage-break yellow flag, he relayed feedback about his car’s handling, adding with exasperation: “I mean, you guys see it. Good luck.”
No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels promised major adjustments, saying, “We’re going to really throw a lot at it right now.” After a longer stop to make those changes, Larson left the pits in 26th place.
Larson worked his way back to ninth by the end of Stage 2, but his report was matter-of-fact: “I think we’ve just got what we’ve got.” A mix of solid restarts, pit strategy and attrition brought him back into the top five by the end.
The result helped Larson rise five spots to 10th in the Cup Series standings, but the 33-year-old driver still had lingering worries, suggesting that the updated Chevrolet body for 2026 and a new 750-horsepower rules package may also take extra adjustment time.
“Yeah, it’s concerning, but I mean, like, we’re always really bad here at Phoenix, at least me,” Larson said. “William (Byron, his teammate) has had his moments of being pretty strong, but I feel like the rest of us three have always been really bad. We just were worse today. I don’t know, just maybe a combination of us needing to learn the body a little bit more and then the horsepower or whatever, but I had the same sort of feel that I always have here, just worse. So yeah, but again, I mean, because we are so bad here, I feel like we know how to fight through it and get a third-place finish like we typically do here, but performance-wise, that’s not where we should be running. So with that, yeah, I’m proud of the team, but for Phoenix, we’ve got to get way, way, way, way better.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Christopher Bell found himself in an unfamiliar place with 20 laps to go in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series showdown at Phoenix Raceway. His No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had led for most of the day, but now, here he was – behind, and with three doubled-up rows of cars in front of him to pass.
The restart was coming in one more lap, and No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens delivered words of inspiration over the team’s radio: “We have the best car. We’ve got the best driver here, bud. We need all take and no give. You can do it.”
The pep talk almost worked and so did a late pit-strategy play for Bell, who led a race-best 176 of 312 laps of the Straight Talk Wireless 500 but finished second in an otherwise dominant day in the desert. He gained significant ground on eventual race winner Ryan Blaney in the final green-flag stretch, but wound up 0.399 seconds – just a handful of car-lengths – shy of what would have been his third consecutive victory in Phoenix’s March event.
Bell was leading when the next-to-last caution period prompted the final pit-stop cycle for all the front-running teams. Several contenders and gamblers opted for quicker service by changing right-side tires only, but the No. 20 crew took the time for four fresh Goodyears, placing him eighth for the next-to-last restart. The tire advantage nearly overcame the track-position disadvantage, with another rapid-fire yellow flag interrupting what could have been a winning final-stint charge.
“A few more laps, I probably would have got there,” Bell said on pit road post-race, “but I held him off on two tires so he wasn’t going to be an easy pass either way. So just … it’s a bummer. He made the call, Adam made the call for four tires, and I was in total agreeance whenever he made that decision. I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely, I’ll be able to get back up through there.’ Then whenever so many cars took two (tires) and we had that immediate yellow. That was a bummer. Ultimately, it was a day that we needed to get out of here with a lot of stage points, a great finish. Just really, really, really stinks to let them get away whenever they’re that close.”
The outcome was almost reminiscent of Phoenix’s most recent race last November, when the dominance of JGR teammate Denny Hamlin in the championship-deciding event was foiled by a bad bounce in pit strategy. Stevens faced a similar choice, one that Bell was on board with.
“I mean, we either needed a couple more laps or we needed that caution not to come after we all pit, you know what I mean, or that first restart could have went a little better,” Stevens told NASCAR.com. “We just maintained on that first restart. The second one, we hit it a lot better and made a lot of ground, you know. So three things, I would say, went against us, and we came up one spot short – maybe half a second or a little less. So, easy to Monday-morning quarterback that, and that’s what you have to do, sure. But I don’t know if we take rights that if it played out the same, I think we win, but I don’t know that it plays out the same. You know what I mean? I just don’t know. One of them things. That’s part of it.”
Aside from the sting of the defeat, there was a silver lining to be shared with a pair of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. Ty Gibbs held the lead late until Blaney powered by for the winning pass with 10 laps left, but held on to finish fourth for the second straight week. Right behind him was Hamlin, who turned in his best result of the season in fifth. Only Chase Briscoe, the first retiree after a midrace crash, was outside the JGR power play on the final leaderboard.
It was a much-needed boost for the Gibbs group, which owed its lower-rung parking spots in the Cup Series garage this weekend to an organization-wide sluggish start to the 2026 campaign. After Sunday, Bell — who was runner-up in Stage 1 and won the second stage — improved 18 positions to sixth in the Cup standings. Hamlin moved up 11 places to 12th, and Gibbs made a two-spot gain to 15th.
Gibbs just missed notching his first major-league win — a stretch that now spans 127 Cup Series starts — but he instead secured his first consecutive top-five efforts since August 2024.
“That little restart, I don’t know. I could have done a better job, but I also felt really loose, too,” Gibbs said. “We’ll just go back and look at it, but I can’t thank my guys enough. My guys are so great. They’re very loyal, too. So, very loyal group of guys that are badass, and they all believe in me. So working with the right people makes a difference, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
Hamlin led just once for five laps Sunday, but he was also one spot better than his last time out at Phoenix, where an elusive first Cup Series title slipped away after a late restart. This time around, Hamlin found some consolation in the fact that his No. 11 Toyota team has improved its results each week.
“I certainly am confident knowing through the weekend that I did all the same things as last fall,” said Hamlin, who led 208 of 319 laps here in November. “Just, we didn’t have the car that we had last fall and didn’t have the setup that we had last fall, and so this is a good step. I mean, our finishes have gotten a little better throughout the whole year. Every finish has gotten a little better. This is a marathon, you know? It’s easy to kind of look at them in the moment, in the weekend, like, ‘All right, well, this is a success or failure,’ but we’re just an inch into a mile, so a long way to go, but we’ve got something to build with.”
Bell, still smarting, agreed.
“I mean, I’m happy,” Bell said of the encouraging effort. “We had a process change over the offseason to try and improve our car performance, and I’m super happy with where we’re at right now. So if we can keep doing this, we’re going to be in good shape.”
A strong Phoenix Raceway outing for Joey Logano was cut short with 58 laps to go as the polesitter was spun after contact with AJ Allmendinger before entering Turn 1 in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500.
The No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver spun up the track into Turn 1 and collected Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry, Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suárez and Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott.
Logano led 73 laps on the day after earning the Busch Light Pole Award Saturday afternoon. However, the final stage was full of attrition for the three-time Cup Series titleholder as he and Ross Chastain sparked a multicar pileup earlier in the final stage at the 1-mile Arizona oval.
“It just seemed like everyone ran out of space,” Logano said. “There were two cars on the outside of me. I thought I had one on the inside and you’re trying to just merge all back together and everyone ran out of space. I got the wrong end of it. It is what it is. It stinks. We had a pretty good car. I hate that I got into Ross. I had a good run there to try to slip him and he kind of anticipated and went down to the bottom and we got into each other. I just ended up spinning him, which I didn’t mean to, so it’s just not the greatest of days.”
Suárez, Logano and Berry all took their vehicles to the garage, ending their respective days and were credited with places 30th-32nd on the results sheet.
With under 100 to go in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway, Joey Logano and Ross Chastain made contact on a Lap 217 restart that initiated a multicar wreck just past the dogleg after the start/finish line.
The No. 22 Team Penske Ford gave the No. 1 Trackhouse Chevrolet a shot in the rear in the dogleg transition, causing Chastain to get loose and spin to the right. Chastain came up the track and collected Anthony Alfredo, Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric, who took a hard hit into the outside retaining wall. Cindric did climb out of his No. 2 Team Penske Ford under his own power following the incident and was checked and released from the infield care center.
“The restarts get crazy here, and I’m not really sure what happened other than just cars jumping right across the race track,” Cindric said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever jumped head-on into a wall, but that changed today. It’s just a shame. I’m not discouraged. This 2 team has shown me a lot in the first four races, but it’s just a shame we don’t have the results for them. We got points in both stages and were in desperate need of a race finish without a crash, and we did not get that today. It’s a shame because I felt like we did all the right things throughout the afternoon, so that’s racing.”
Alfredo, who filled in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet due to Alex Bowman dealing with vertigo, also exited the race.
Wallace and Logano remained on track and on the lead lap. Logano was involved in an additional wreck on Lap 254, resulting in significant damage to the No. 22.
Wallace was able to leave Phoenix with a sixth-place result despite some left-side damage. Chastain returned to the track 26 laps down and was credited with a 28th-place finish.
Chase Briscoe’s slow start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season continued in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
During Stage 2, the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had a tire go down entering Turn 3 and slammed the outside retaining wall to put the hot rod in the garage for the remainder of the race.
“I’ve only seen the replay one time, it almost looked like something in my left front,” Briscoe said. “When I had my vibration, I told them that I thought it was in the front end. Just par for the course for how this year started. It was another car that was extremely fast, felt like we were certainly going to be in contention for the win and just another failure for us.”
It’s the second consecutive DNF for Briscoe after a transaxle failure at Circuit of The Americas.
The No. 19 was credited with a 37th-place finish at Phoenix, a third result of 36th or worse in the first four races of 2026. He entered Sunday 27th in points and now heads to Las Vegas in 33rd.
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ryan Blaney completed a hard-earned Team Penske sweep at the famed Phoenix Raceway in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 – recovering from multiple early race setbacks to claim his first NASCAR Cup Series trophy of the 2026 season and answer his Penske organization’s Saturday IndyCar win at the track with a spectacular and popular stock car victory a day later.
A pair of pit stop issues – including a penalty for pitting outside his box – put Blaney at the rear of the field twice early in the race, but the 2023 series champion was not to be denied, rallying back in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford and taking the lead for good with 10 laps remaining.
Blaney’s team took tires on a final stop on a caution with 12 laps remaining and made his way forward after restarting on the second row.
He got around then race leader Ty Gibbs with 10 to go and then held off No. 54’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell, who led the most laps – 176 of 312 – but faced a huge task, moving up from an eighth-place position on the final restart as the first car to take four tires. With the fresh Goodyear rubber, Bell at least kept Blaney honest, cutting into the lead with each lap, but ultimately landed .399 seconds short.
“Just perseverance,” Blaney conceded of his afternoon. “I mean, everybody on the 12 group persevered all day. We had a couple mistakes that we learned from, got better, had to come from the back a couple times.
“Obviously, the 20 [Bell] was the best car. But Jonathan [Hassler, No. 12 crew chief] made a great call to take two [on last stop]. We were able to get the lead. Hold them off. I don’t know how many more laps I could have held them off.
“Really proud of everybody at Team Penske. We swept the weekend with [Josef] Newgarden winning yesterday (in the NTT IndyCar Series race), us winning today. Can’t wait to see Roger [Penske, team owner]. … Can’t say enough about the 12 guys for keeping their head down and doing what they do, and Jonathan again for making a good call at the end.”
Bright sun and temperatures near 90 degrees welcomed a huge crowd for Sunday’s second half of the well-received racing doubleheader weekend with both IndyCar and NASCAR marquee events. Many of the open-wheel racers stayed at the track and found spots atop team pit stands to watch the stock cars compete.
And the Penske team certainly made the most of the unique doubleheader opportunity.
It marks the 32-year-old Blaney’s 18th career victory and second at Phoenix, which vaults him to second place in the championship standings – now 60 points behind 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who saw his historic three-race winning streak to start the season end with an eighth-place showing Sunday.
Reddick ran among the top 10 throughout the race but never truly challenged for the victory.
“We kind of just hovered around fifth all day,” conceded Reddick, whose 23XI Racing team co-owner Michael Jordan was again trackside in support of the organization’s record-setting 2026 season start.
“Looking at the board over here, scored the fourth most amount of points on the day,” he added. “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. Solid day. If we’re not going to win, these are the kind of days we need to have. Glad to get out of here with some points.”
Bell, the defending race winner, whose own three-race winning streak last season included this Phoenix race, was understandably disappointed to finish runner-up after leading the most laps. The upside, however, is that his No. 20 JGR team dramatically moved up from 24th in the championship standings before the race to now sixth place heading to Las Vegas next week. He and Blaney each won a stage on Sunday.
“Ultimately, if we had more green flag laps, I think we could have made a run at him,” Bell said. “I don’t know. You win some, you lose some. This one stings, but on the positive side, I’m really proud of our entire team. It’s something to build on. It was a day that we needed. We got a lot of stage points, finished second – just bummed whenever they get away like that.”
Beyond Blaney and Bell, reigning series champion Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson finished third, followed by Bell’s JGR teammates Gibbs, who now has back-to-back fourth-place finishes on the season, and Denny Hamlin.
Reddick’s teammate, Bubba Wallace, was sixth, followed by Hendrick’s William Byron, Reddick, Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell and Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones. Popular driver Shane Van Gisbergen – the series road racing ace – rallied to an 11th-place showing even after being involved in multiple incidents on the day.
The race’s 12 cautions tied the track record for yellow flags. There were eight leaders and 23 lead changes.
Anthony Alfredo, who was subbing for Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman, finished 33rd in the No. 48 Chevrolet, collected in a multi-car crash with just under than 100 laps remaining.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for next Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry is the defending race winner.
NOTE: NASCAR Cup Series post-race inspection is complete at Phoenix Raceway, confirming Ryan Blaney as the race winner. No cars are returning to the NASCAR R&D Center.
The No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford was penalized at Phoenix Raceway after the team was seen making an unapproved adjustment to the car’s underbody during NASCAR Cup Series practice and pre-qualifying adjustments.
Car chief Will Norris was ejected from the event, NASCAR officials announced Saturday afternoon, leaving driver Zane Smith without a key member of his team ahead of Sunday afternoon’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, HBO Max, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Additionally, Smith – who qualified 24th for Sunday’s 312-lap event at the 1-mile Arizona track – must drop to the rear of the field and perform a drive-through penalty after taking the green flag.
Officials reinspected the No. 38 Ford before Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions.
Additionally, NASCAR announced Sunday that Carson Hocevar, who qualified seventh, will drop to the rear due to unapproved adjustments. Brad Keselowski will also start from the rear after a practice crash resulted in a backup car.
The NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series begin the two-week west-coast swing in Arizona with the first of two trips to Phoenix Raceway 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.
Race day: Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: Ten sets for the weekend (eight new race sets, one set transferred from qualifying, one for practice). Teams will also be allotted four wet-weather sets, if necessary.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Jesse Love and Carson Kvapil ranked 1-2 in laps led Saturday at Phoenix Raceway. They also ran 1-2 for significant portions of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series tilt, battling fiercely in — appropriately — cars No. 1 (Kvapil) and No. 2 (Love).
Neither brought home a hard-fought victory in the desert, losing out to a lucky – but also quite good — No. 7.
Love and Kvapil showed the way for most of Saturday’s Govx 200, falling short to a resurgent Justin Allgaier at the 1-mile Phoenix oval. Love led a race-best 114 laps and Kvapil set the pace for 22, but it was the veteran Allgaier who led the 11 laps that mattered most to seal his 29th series win and his first at Phoenix since 2019.
Love placed second with Kvapil third, but both entered Saturday’s 200-miler with encouraging hopes for landing on the top step of Phoenix’s podium. For Love, he arrived as the series’ most recent Phoenix winner, and he’s celebrated clinching three championships here — two in the ARCA Menards Series West (2020-21) and last year’s O’Reilly Series title in winning fashion.
Saturday looked like more of the same as Love won the second stage, stamping his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet as the in-race favorite. When a pair of caution periods sprouted after the final pit-stop cycle, Love said he regretted not saving his tires for the possibility of late restarts. With his Goodyears well-worn as he vied for position with Kvapil and Haas Factory Team drivers Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer through the final stage, it provided an opening for Allgaier to work his way by.
“The last restart, I thought it went exactly how I thought it was going to go,” Love said after a shell-shocked moment of reflection on pit road. “I chose the bottom (lane) because I thought they would wash up and open the door, and it did, and it was probably the best two restarts in my life. And then, yeah, just the 7 (Allgaier) just had my number there the last few laps, and I should have figured out a way to make it harder on him, and he timed it out right. Yeah, just a little bit blown away.”
Kvapil nearly hit paydirt in Saturday’s bid for his first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory, and he might have had a secret weapon atop the JR Motorsports No. 1 Chevrolet pit box. Crew chief Rodney Childers, who joined JRM’s O’Reilly operation in the offseason, has a history with this place, helping guide Kevin Harvick to five of his nine Phoenix wins.
Kvapil called Childers’ expertise “a huge confidence booster,” and he said the two studied on-board footage from Harvick’s efforts here in 2014 and ’15 as a primer. Any words of wisdom, though?
“He doesn’t talk a whole lot, but we prepare quite a bit for all the races,” Kvapil said with a grin. “Obviously, I’m kind of at a point where every race really matters, and going and running good in one of these races and winning one is huge for me. So we’re just really trying to prepare as much as we can, maximize our sim time and just do all the right things, and I kind of feel like this is a preview for what we’re going to have with the 1 car this year — at least I hope so.”
Kvapil moved up a position to fourth in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings as his patchwork 2026 season gained momentum. Kvapil is competing for three teams this year — JRM’s No. 1 outfit for 24 races, JRM’s No. 9 group for five more, plus four for DGM Racing, which fielded his entry for Circuit of The Americas last weekend. He’ll make it three teams in three weeks next Saturday at Las Vegas (5:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where he’ll suit up to drive the No. 9 Chevy.
Love stayed in place in the standings, sitting second in the order behind new points leader Allgaier. Though winless, he leaves Phoenix as the series’ only driver with top-10 results in all four races so far — at least some consolation for finishing one spot shy of Victory Lane.
“Well, I’m really proud of our group. I’m proud of Danny (Stockman, crew chief) and the whole team,” Love said. “I’m proud of everybody back in Welcome, (North Carolina, RCR headquarters) for having a really productive offseason. It’s really easy to win a championship and get complacent, and I think that we knew that going into the offseason, and we refused to let that happen. So yeah, we’ve got the best cars right now, and I just … I have got to do a better job and close it out.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier pushed forward when it mattered most, his No. 7 Chevrolet leading only the last 11 laps of Saturday night’s GOVX 200 at Phoenix Raceway to claim his third win at the 1-mile Arizona oval and take over the championship lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Allgaier had to pass the night’s most dominant driver, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love, to earn the trophy. Love came into the race with the best average finish in the last four Phoenix races and again proved how good he is in the desert, leading a race-best 114 of the 200 laps.
There were no caution periods in the opening two stages of the race — the first stage won by Allgaier’s teammate Sammy Smith and the second stage won by Love.
Two late-race yellow flags, however, bunched the field on restarts and allowed Allgaier’s team to rally from a slow pit stop earlier in the night. The two former champions went door-to-door following the final restart with 15 laps to go, the 2024 series champ Allgaier ultimately besting the 2025 champ Love with a daring move on the outside and then holding him off by .449-seconds at the finish line to earn JR Motorsports’ 107th victory.
“So proud of this team,” said Allgaier, praising the team for overcoming a poor stop early. “It wasn’t for lack of adversity and it seems like those are the ones that are big for us. I cannot say enough about this team.
“It never gets old winning,” added Allgaier, who has now won at least one race for a record 10 consecutive seasons. “This team rallied and never gave up.”
As encouraging as the night was — a stage win and fourth consecutive top-10 finish on the season for Love, the 21-year-old was understandably frustrated to finish runner-up after such a dominant showing.
“The car tightening up there at the beginning of stage three put us behind, so just frustrated,” said Love, noting that he refused to just walk away happy with a runner-up showing after such a strong effort.
“Obviously not why I’m here [to finish second]. Just beyond frustrated with myself. I don’t know what else to say, just upset, upset with myself.”
The top finishing 14 cars were Chevrolets. Allgaier’s JR Motorsports teammate, Carson Kvapil, who looked strong mid-race and led 22 laps, finished third, followed by Haas Factory Team drivers Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer.
Sammy Smith, Jeb Burton, Rajah Caruth, Corey Day and Anthony Alfredo rounded out the top 10. It’s the third top 10 of the season for both Smith and Day.
The championship standings now mirror Saturday’s outcome with Allgaier holding a three-point advantage over Love as the series heads to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway for next week’s The LiUNA! (5:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Allgaier is the defending winner of that race.
Note: Inspection was completed in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage with no issues, confirming Allgaier as the winner.
