LAS VEGAS — A refocused and rejuvenated Denny Hamlin drove the dominant car to victory in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 Presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The NASCAR Cup Series victory was Hamlin’s first of the season, his third overall and second straight at the 1.5-mile track and the 61st of his career — good for 10th on the all-time list.
The win came five races after Hamlin suffered a crushing 11th-hour defeat in the race for the 2025 Cup championship at Phoenix Raceway last November. Three laps from his first title and foiled by an ill-timed caution, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota took months to reconcile the disappointment.
“I knew it took a few weeks to feel like driving,” Hamlin said. “Over the last couple weeks, I definitely regained my love of it, got refocused. These are great opportunities for us.”
His 61st victory broke a tie on the career list with Kevin Harvick.
“My name stands out amongst… there’s the legends of the sport,” said the 45-year-old driver. “I feel very fortunate to be on the list. Those guys were far more talented than I have ever thought about being.
“I just work really hard. I still to this day work really hard at my craft to try to continue to get better. Days like today certainly make me feel happy about where I’m at in the sport still and what I can still do.”
Brushing off a pit road speeding penalty at the first stage break, Hamlin rallied to lead a race-high 134 laps and held off the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Chase Elliott and William Byron, who ran second and third, respectively.
Pole winner Christopher Bell was fourth, followed by Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson, who led 62 laps and finished second in both Stage 1 and Stage 2.
Chase Briscoe ran eighth, overcoming a pit road speeding penalty, as did Gibbs, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate. Bubba Wallace came home ninth and Brad Keselowski 10th.
Tyler Reddick, winner of the first three races this season, faded to 13th in the final run but maintained his series lead by 61 points over Wallace, his 23XI Racing teammate, and 67 over third-place Ryan Blaney.
With Hamlin relegated to the rear after his speeding penalty, the start of the second stage was a thrill show, with the cars of Larson, Bell, Byron and Elliott packed together like the Air Force Thunderbirds flying in formation.
The four drivers, soon joined by Reddick, jockeyed for position for three laps before Byron pushed Larson into the lead on Lap 93, with Bell soon following into second.
Larson led 28 laps before steering his car to pit road on Lap 121. When the pit cycle ended, Larson led Bell by nearly three seconds but began to fade toward the end of the stage. Both Bell and Byron tracked Larson down, with Byron seizing a chance to take the lead three-wide in the tri-oval on Lap 159.
Byron pulled away to win the stage, with Larson and Bell finishing second and third under the green/checkered flag on Lap 165.
Meanwhile, Hamlin spent the entirety of Stage 2 recovering from the pit road speeding penalty he incurred under caution during the Stage 1 break on Lap 84. Restarting 21st on Lap 89, Hamlin methodically worked his way forward and was fifth when the second stage ended.
Hamlin moved to second behind Byron after the final-stage restart on Lap 174, grabbed the lead to the inside of the Hendrick driver on Lap185 and began to pull away.
But Hamlin’s lead was short-lived. On Lap 211, Byron pulled ahead in Turn 3 moments before Connor Zilisch spun off Turn 4 to cause the first caution of the race for an on-track incident.
Under the yellow, Bell regained two positions and the lead with a quick stop, with Hamlin exiting pit road in second and Byron and Elliott following in third and fourth. A slow pit stop relegated Larson to eighth for the Lap-218 restart.
One lap later, Hamlin passed his JGR teammate for the lead and held it the rest of the way, holding off a fast-closing Elliott by 0.502 seconds at the finish.
“It (the No. 9 Chevrolet) was definitely better there toward the end than we had started the run,” said Elliott, who hasn’t led a lap at Las Vegas since NASCAR introduced the Gen 7 race car in 2022. “I thought there might be an opportunity. I knew that he was starting to get tight there at the end of runs.
“Yeah, man, as bummed as I am to come up that close to a win, I have to kind of bring myself back to a reality check, how much better we ran today than we’ve been running. I’m balancing that, right?
“Obviously, these things are hard to win. We had a great opportunity to do it. But really proud of the effort throughout the week, preparation, yesterday. Just kind of fighting through a not-so-good day. Getting up there in the mix with the guys that win a lot of these races anymore. Really proud of that.”
Substituting for Alex Bowman, who is suffering from vertigo, Justin Allgaier finished 25th. With long green-flag runs being the order of the day, only of the 20 of the 36 starters finished on the lead lap.
There were 21 lead changes among nine drivers and three cautions for 20 laps.
NASCAR Cup Series Race – Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube
1. (2) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 267.
2. (15) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 267.
3. (9) William Byron, Chevrolet, 267.
4. (1) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 267.
5. (3) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, 267.
6. (10) Chris Buescher, Ford, 267.
7. (5) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 267.
8. (18) Chase Briscoe, Toyota, 267.
9. (4) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 267.
10. (28) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 267.
11. (8) Ryan Preece, Ford, 267.
12. (11) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 267.
13. (7) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 267.
14. (12) Zane Smith, Ford, 267.
15. (21) Joey Logano, Ford, 267.
16. (6) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 267.
17. (17) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 267.
18. (13) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 267.
19. (31) Austin Cindric, Ford, 267.
20. (14) Erik Jones, Toyota, 267.
21. (26) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 266.
22. (19) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, 266.
23. (20) Riley Herbst, Toyota, 266.
24. (29) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 265.
25. (22) Justin Allgaier(i), Chevrolet, 265.
26. (30) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 265.
27. (35) Cole Custer, Chevrolet, 265.
28. (24) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 265.
29. (23) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 265.
30. (34) Noah Gragson, Ford, 265.
31. (32) Josh Berry, Ford, 264.
32. (25) Connor Zilisch #, Chevrolet, 264.
33. (36) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 264.
34. (27) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 264.
35. (33) Cody Ware, Chevrolet, 263.
36. (16) Shane Van Gisbergen, Chevrolet, 262.
