Chase Elliott, Hendrick Motorsports’ top driver, watched Sunday’s Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on television, but that didn’t stop the march of one of NASCAR’s top teams.
Hendrick driver William Byron shot to the lead on the first lap of overtime and stayed out front to win the 400-miler, the third points race of the season. Byron led 176 of the day’s 271 laps but almost lost the win to teammate Kyle Larson, who finished second.
Larson was leading and appeared to be in line to win the race when a crash by Aric Almirola brought out a caution with four laps to go and pushed the race to overtime. All of the leaders except Martin Truex Jr. pitted for right-side tires for the overtime dash.
MORE: Josh Berry finishes 29th for Chase Elliott
MORE: Las Vegas Cup results, points
A fast pit stop by Byron’s crew put him on track in front of Larson. Byron, 25, roared by Truex on the restart and won by .622 of a second to score his fifth career Cup win.
Chevrolet has won the first three points races of the year.
Larson was second, and Alex Bowman made the first three a Hendrick sweep. It marked the third time Hendrick drivers have finished one-two-three in a Cup race. Bubba Wallace was fourth and Christopher Bell fifth.
“We spent a lot of time in the off-season just going through running at the sim (simulator) with Chevy and running on iRacing and just trying to get better as a race car driver and as a team,” Byron told Fox Sports after the win. “It’s all about the team. It’s a great pit crew.”
Byron dominated the first two-thirds of the race, winning the first and second stages with ease. He led 152 of the race’s first 165 laps and was solidly in front across that stretch, rarely being challenged for the lead.
In the final stage, Larson took the lead as Denny Hamlin, Truex and Bowman also challenged Byron’s dominant stance.
Josh Berry, who substituted for Elliott after the No. 9’s driver suffered a broken leg in a snowboarding accident Friday, was not a factor at the front, finishing two laps down in 29th.
Pole winner Joey Logano had an assortment of issues. He was pushed into the wall and later, while racing Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch, popped the wall again and slid across the track onto the grass separating the frontstretch from pit road. That accident produced the first non-stage caution of the race and sent Logano to the garage area.
Kyle Busch slapped the outside wall early in the race, damaging his No. 8 Chevrolet, but he continued to race in and around the top 10. Joey Logano was among other drivers who brushed the wall.
Stage 1 winner: William Byron
Stage 2 winner: William Byron
Who had a good race: William Byron had a sensational race. Rarely has a driver dominated at a 1.5-mile track the way Byron did Sunday. … Kyle Larson saved the best for last, gaining strength over the final 100 miles…. Trackhouse Racing drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez showed strength for the third consecutive race, Suarez finishing 10th and Suarez 12th.
Who had a bad race: Joey Logano started from the pole spot but had a rough race day, eventually leaving the race after crashing into the outside wall and sliding onto the grass adjacent to the track. He finished last. … Although Kevin Harvick raced into the top 10, his Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Ryan Preece and Chase Briscoe struggled much of the afternoon.
Next: The Cup Series’ swing through the West continues with a March 12 race at Phoenix Raceway.
A look at the winners and losers in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway:
WINNERS
William Byron — Byron zapped the rest of the field in Vegas. His Chevrolet ran like the wind most of the day, leading 176 of the race’s 271 laps. Despite the strong run, he had to rally in overtime to grab the win.
Kyle Larson — Larson raced in the shadow of William Byron much of the way, then took first place in the final stage. Chances are good he would have won the race without the late-race caution that bunched the field for overtime.
Alex Bowman — He placed third, giving Hendrick Motorsports a 1-2-3 finish. Bowman’s 85 points in the first two races of the West Coast swing is second in the series to Ross Chastain‘s 91 points.
Daniel Suarez — Suarez didn’t lead a lap, but his 10th-place run gives him top-10 finishes in all three Cup races to date and puts him fourth in points.
Justin Haley — Haley drove a steady race and was in the wake of the lead group at the end, finishing eighth, easily his best run of the year. The finish boosted him seven places in points to 23rd.
Corey LaJoie – LaJoie finished 20th and has top-20 runs (16th at Daytona, 14th at Auto Club) in all three races to date.
LOSERS
Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece — Although Kevin Harvick finished ninth and was in the jumble at the front late in the race, his Stewart-Haas Racing teammates stumbled. Briscoe finished two laps down in 28th. Preece was a lap behind the leaders in 23rd.
Noah Gragson — Gragson had a rough afternoon with three pit road speeding penalties and came home 30th, two laps off the lead pace.
Joey Logano — Logano won the pole but struggled through the race, slapping the wall and later hitting the fence harder during a three-wide battle with Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski and sliding across the track. He parked his Ford and finished last.
Here is what drivers had to say after Sunday’s Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway:
William Byron — Winner: “I felt like in practice we had a good car. I was a little bit nervous about the wind today and how that would change what we had going on and whether or not we’d be as strong, but just kind of the consensus, I guess, in the garage and then talking to some of the drivers, they were pretty confident about what we had going on. I was happy about that. Yeah, started the race good. I thought Kyle (Larson) was really strong. He could stay close to me for a lot of the runs in the first and second stage, and I felt like I was a little bit tight, but just trying to navigate lap traffic and navigate the wind and how that would change the handling. Just happy with getting the first win of the year. It’s been a while since we’ve won. It’s been almost a year, and it’s nice to kind of just get back to what I feel like we’re capable of. It’s been up and down, but I feel like this is what we’re capable of every week. … I speak for everyone in the fact that we miss Chase (Elliott) out here. He’s a big contributor to feedback and our debriefs and he’s a great race car driver. Has a lot to offer there. I think there was a void there, but I think we were able to fill it with just kind of coming together as a team, and having Josh come on board, he’s obviously a great race car driver, too, and I know him from the past. … It was an important day. I felt that for sure. I texted (team owner Rick Hendrick) after practice and felt really good about the car and just wanted to reassure that we’re going to go out there and try to win for him because it was a tough week.”
Kyle Larson — Finished 2nd: “It’s just part of Cup racing. It seems like kind of (count) 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 (Martin Truex Jr.) 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.”
Alex Bowman — Finished 3rd: “I think I got us too tight in stage 3 and just tried to be really aggressive and make for it there on that last restart. Yeah, had a shot at it, just a couple rows too far back to start. But really proud of Hendrick Motorsports. To be one, two, three is really awesome. Our Allied Camaro was really good, especially Stage 2. Just asked for the wrong adjustments probably. Just excited with the way the year has started, and hopefully we keep the momentum rolling next week at Phoenix.
Bubba Wallace — Finished 4th: “Really thought we had a much better car in the race than what we had in practice. 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.”
Christopher Bell — Finished 5th: “Honestly, the finish to that ended up about as good as we could have asked. … Strange day for us because we took off and I felt really good and drove right to top-five and I didn’t feel like I had anything for the Hendrick cars. It seemed like we were the best of the rest and then we lost the handling.”
Austin Cindric — Finished 6th: “A bit of a team effort there honestly. Definitely didn’t have the strength early on in the race. The second stage we definitely fell back even a little bit further. Got the lucky dog, honestly thanks to the pit crew which was able to get us back out front. Caution comes out … just made the car better all day. Felt like we earned a top 15 from the depths of hell for awhile, but going two tires on the restart, getting a good launch and being able to be in a position in the green-white-checkered. So, a little bit of strategy, a little bit of good pit stops – some good restarts on my end and a good recovery. You’ve got to run up-front in these things to expect to win, but when we don’t have it, it’s good to know that we can get back.”
Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 7th: “If you can somehow get a good restart, get to the white flag and they crash, then you win the thing. It almost happened. We were second at the white, we were second going into Turn 1 on the last lap and just got tight and got in a bad spot coming off of Turn 2 and lost momentum down the back. … Could never quite get it where we need it. I think we were about a third-place car, maybe fourth. Just a good, solid day. We’re in Vegas, we might as well roll the dice and like everybody says, we come here to gamble. I was proud of James (Small, crew chief) for that. Last year we didn’t and it bit us. We gave up a few spots, but all in all it was a solid day.”
Justin Haley — Finished 8th: “We had a really good long run car today and this is our Fontana car. We’re one of like three teams, three individual cars that repaired our stuff and brought it this week. I’m proud of the effort and the grind. They hung a body in this thing in the snow in Fontana a few days ago. That’s pretty awesome for our little team. I appreciate Matt (Kaulig), Chris (Rice), and everyone at Leaf Filter. This was a good run for us, especially with the start of season we’ve had.”
Daniel Suarez — Finished 10th: “It was a roller coaster. We had a fast car all day. Some runs were better than others. I felt like at times that we had a car capable of fighting for the win. For some reason, I felt like we had a set of tires that was a little weird there and we lost some track position. Then we had a bad stop on the last one and lost another few seconds. It was a little difficult because we had to overcome a lot. But overall the car had speed and the car was capable of running in the top-five. That is very promising.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 13th: “We didn’t start off very good. We struggled really bad the first two stages. Thought we got a little better there the last couple runs. I think we were about eighth before the last caution, started back racing and just went backwards. It’s unfortunate. We worked hard all day to get faster. The last restart pit-stops didn’t go our way.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 14th: “I’m proud of everyone at Richard Childress Racing for their hard work today. We started the race fifth in our Alsco Chevrolet and battled a tight-handling condition right off the bat. Crew chief Randall Burnett and the guys worked on the handling of our Chevy throughout the day, but long green-flag runs hindered our opportunities. When we did pit, the No. 8 team performed and gained us spots on pit road. We just never seemed to get the balance to where it needed to be to contend for the win. We’ll take this 14th-place finish, regroup and focus on Phoenix Raceway.”
Erik Jones — Finished 19th: “Not the finish we deserved today. The guys gave me a fast Allegiant Chevy and we were running really well, even made our way to the top 10. Unfortunately, we got behind and made some adjustments to free up our car in traffic, but ended up making ourselves too loose for when we were on clean air. We had some tire issues late and that put us in the back and wrecked on the last lap. We just need to clean things up and come back stronger next week at Phoenix.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 27th: “We started the race deeper in the field than any of us would have preferred, and long green-flag runs early in the race made it difficult to work on handling issues. We just didn’t hit on the balance today. At the end of the first run, we were pretty good. Just too free. Then, our Chevy got tightened up and I couldn’t get through the bumps very well. We salvaged what we could. We ended up with damage during a multi-car wreck on the last lap, but luckily, we were able to finish the race. I had nowhere to go. It was a tough day, but this team has a lot of fight. I’m looking forward to getting back on track at Phoenix Raceway.”
Josh Berry — Finished 29th: “It was a lot of fun. Really I thought the first half of the race went pretty well. We were really close, right on the edge of staying on the lead lap or not. We just needed a couple more cautions to just give ourselves a better chance. The second half of the race, we had an issue going on with the throttle or something because every time I was letting off, it was hanging wide-open. I was just trying to nurse it home and keep it out of trouble.”
Noah Gragson — Finished 30th: “An up-and-down day. I felt like we had good speed, just lost a couple of laps on the first pit stop speeding on pit road, making mistakes and speeding again on my pass-through penalty during the first green-flag pit stop, and that put us behind all day. … I felt like we had good speed, just a couple of laps down at the end. We’ll keep working on it.”
Joey Logano — Finished 36th: “Considering how we’ve been here in the past, you kind of expect it a little bit more performance today than what we had. 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. (On if Brad Keselowski pinched him a bit in the incident) Yeah, he did. I’m sure he didn’t mean to do it. It is what it is. What are you going to do, right? We got fenced.”
Josh Berry, driving for an injured Chase Elliott, finished 29th in Sunday’s Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Elliott, who was coming off a runner-up finish last weekend at Auto Club Speedway, suffered a fractured tibia in a snowboarding accident Friday in Colorado. Hendrick Motorsports has not stated a timetable for Elliott’s return.
MORE: Las Vegas Cup results
Berry, who competes full-time in the Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports, had run only two previous Cup races. Both of those were in 2021, making this weekend his first time in a Next Gen Cup car. Berry ran 26 laps in practice before qualifying 32nd.
Berry finished two laps behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, who won the race.
“Good job, buddy,” crew chief Alan Gustafson told Berry on the radio after the race. “Sorry about that mess there with the throttle and everything else.
Said Berry: “I feel like that really kind of hurt me at the end. I felt like I was starting to make some progress. I don’t know whatever happened that was there, just got throwing me off.
“Honestly, it was a lot of fun. I know it wasn’t what we wanted, but I had a good time. I needed some more yellows.”
Berry had talked earlier in the race about issues related to the throttle. Berry and Gustafson conversed throughout the race about how Berry was driving.
“Josh did an amazing job for us, given the circumstances, given the fact that he’s not ever been in one of these Next Gen cars before,” said Jeff Andrews, president and general manager of Hendrick Motorsports. “Really, really happy with what he did for us today. We’ve got some things to work on. We think we had a little bit of an issue there. It was causing a little bit of issue with his throttle during the race. We’ve got to get it fixed and remedied, but really, really pleased with the job he did for us.”
Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman knows the challenges Berry faced this weekend. Bowman drove select races in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car in 2016 when Earnhardt was out after suffering a concussion in a crash.
“It’s a hard situation to step into,” Bowman said earlier this weekend. “Obviously we had some success when I filled in, but it’s really hard. It think it’s only gotten harder with the Next Gen car coming in.
“The Xfinity car used to be so similar to a Cup car, and now they couldn’t be more different in how they drive and how you can approach how to aggressively drive them. Plus, when I came in, I had a couple years of Cup experience already.
“So it’s definitely different, but I think it is a good opportunity for Josh to learn and see how Hendrick Motorsports operates; the things that we do and to be part of an organization like that. Even though it’s through a situation that nobody wants, I think it’s something that you can grow as a racecar driver from; learn and show everybody what you’ve got.”
Hendrick Motorsports has not stated who will drive the No. 9 car beyond Sunday’s race at Las Vegas until Elliott returns. Andrews said the team will need to make a decision Monday to have the driver’s seat in the car before the hauler leaves on Tuesday.
In all seriousness, the support I’ve received over the last couple of days is far greater than I deserve. I want to thank everyone who has lended it over in any form!
Let’s give @joshberry and the @NAPARacing team some love today! #di9
— Chase Elliott (@chaseelliott) March 5, 2023
William Byron outran Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson in overtime to win Sunday’s 400-mile Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Byron was a dominant force throughout the race but lost the lead to Larson in the final stage. Larson’s march to the win was stopped with four laps to go when Aric Alimirola crashed, causing a caution and sending the race into overtime.
Byron started the overtime in second to Martin Truex Jr. but easily passed Truex for the win.
Hendrick cars finished one-two-three as Larson and Alex Bowman followed Byron across the line.