LAS VEGAS — In dominating fashion, William Byron was the class of the field for much of Sunday afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
By the end of the scheduled distance, Byron had led 175 of the 267 laps run in the Pennzoil 400 aboard the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, sweeping the first two stages as well.
However, a late caution to set up overtime was the spark Byron needed to complete his stellar day on the 1.5-mile oval.
Byron’s teammate Kyle Larson was leading with the laps winding down, until an Aric Almirola crash brought out a caution with under four laps to go, triggering an overtime restart.
Outside of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., all of the leaders came down pit road for right-side tires.
On the ensuing restart, Byron’s No. 24 started on the outside of row one, with Larson and JGR’s Denny Hamlin in row two.
Truex hung on the door of Byron through turns one and two, however Byron surged ahead in turn three as the field came to the white flag.
From there, Byron cruised to his fifth career NASCAR Cup Series win, his first since Martinsville (Va.) Speedway last year.
“Just been really confident about the group of guys that I have on this 24 team,” Byron said. “They work extremely hard, and we spent a lot of time in the offseason just going through running at the sim with Chevy and running on iRacing and just trying to get better as a race car driver and as a team.
“It’s all about the team. It’s a great pit crew.”
It was a banner day for HMS, with Larson bringing the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet across the line in second, and Alex Bowman finishing third.
Despite a stout second-place result, Larson was still left disappointed, knowing a sure-victory had slipped away.
“Damn. It’s just part of Cup racing,” Larson said. “It seems like kind of laps down, lap by lap, and then sure enough, the yellow lights come on.
“Yeah, 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 did a really good job and got out in front of us, and 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.
“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.”
With 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott out due to a fractured tibia, NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Josh Berry filled in for Elliott in the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet.
Berry finished the day in 29th, two laps down.
A pair of Toyota’s in Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell followed the HMS brigade, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.
“Love coming here to Vegas. Really thought we had a much better car in the race than what we had in practice,” Wallace said. “Just couldn’t get the front end to work and we tried everything. We went the other way on air, went the opposite way on air and just could never figure it out so we have a lot of work to do for our mile-and-a-half stuff.
“Happy for our Columbia Toyota Camry TRD team. Never stop fighting and never give up. I almost came over the radio and was like, ‘Hey, good job, we finished sixth.’ Then the caution came out and I perked up again and got some.”
As It Happened
A caution-free stage one went Byron, earning his first stage win of the season.
On lap 32, last week’s Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway winner Kyle Busch tagged the wall, prompting steering issues for the driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet. Busch would finish 14th.
Two speeding penalties for Legacy Motor Club’s Noah Gragson negated a disappointing hometown run, as the No. 42 Chevrolet finished 30th, two laps down.
Stage two came and went without a caution, with Byron once again dominating the stage.
The first non-stage caution came at the expense of Team Penske’s Joey Logano. After starting on the pole for Sunday’s race, Logano fell to the middle of the pack by stage three before a three-wide battle ended with the No. 22 pinched into the outside wall by former teammate Brad Keselowski.
Logano would go spinning into the infield grass, bringing out a caution on lap 182.
The 2022 Cup Series champion would pull into the garage for the day after the No. 22 team ran out of time on the damage vehicle policy clock.
“Considering how we’ve been here in the past, you kind of expect it a little bit more performance today than what we had,” Logano said. “Just off on overall speed. We had the balance somewhat close – just not fast. We have to go back to the drawing board for when we come back here.”