Kyle Larson got the best of Tyler Reddick at Las Vegas Motor Speedway by using the air to his advantage.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver won Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 by keeping Reddick in dirty air as he ran different lanes when needed over the final 10 laps. Initially, Larson had gapped the field off the race’s final restart with 27 laps to go, but Reddick had the faster car over the long run. Larson’s lead went from 1s with 18 laps to go to just 0.5s with 13 laps to go.
Larson began mirror driving inside the final 10 laps as Reddick tried to stay out of his dirty air through Turns 1 and 2. The gap disappeared with three laps to go as Reddick got a strong run through Turns 3 and 4 on the bottom of the racetrack as Larson went high.
It wasn’t enough, and Reddick could only do so much when getting so close to the No. 5. Over the final two laps, Reddick stayed on Larson’s bumper but followed him across the finish line.
He holds off a hard-charging Tyler Reddick late at Vegas! Repost to congratulate Kyle Larson on his NASCAR Cup Series WIN. pic.twitter.com/AKpgdQnZfx
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 4, 2024
“I knew Tyler was going to be the guy to beat from the first stage,” Larson said. “He was really fast there. I was hoping those guys were going to get racing a little bit longer behind me because I felt like it was going to timeout to where he was running really hard and getting the tow to catch me at the end. Thankfully, I was able to air-block him [for] a couple of laps and get him tight.
“I think him and Bubba [Wallace] were going to get to working together again to build a run, so I was happy that didn’t happen. But all in all, such a great, great job by this HendrickCars.com Chevy team and just their execution. Pit road, restarts, all of that was great. It’s cool to get a win here at Vegas again. Back-to-back, swept all the stages again, so I can’t ask for much more.”
Larson won the fall race at Las Vegas in 2023. Sunday was his third victory at the speedway.
It was a dominating day for Larson, who led a race-high 181 of 267 laps, but Reddick kept him within sight. Before a round of green flag pit stops late in the final stage, the 23XI car had the push drafting help of teammate Wallace, who was multiple laps down due to a lug nut that needed to be cut off his car, and cut Larson’s lead to 0.5s. That time was lost through the green flag pit cycle, leaving Reddick over 2s behind.
The race’s final caution flew with 33 laps to go when Corey LaJoie spun and hit the wall in Turn 2. Larson was leading Reddick by 1.4s at the time.
Larson won the race off pit road, followed by Ross Chastain, who took two tires. Reddick came off in third place. On the restart with 27 laps to go, Larson blocked Reddick’s run into Turn 1 and then chased Chastain through the corners before eventually clearing him for the race lead.
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Reddick got back to second with 21 laps to go. It was Larson over Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Chastain, and Ty Gibbs at the finish line.
Gibbs fought through the day without first gear. There was also a slow pit stop under the lap 156 caution period, for which the team was penalized for an uncontrolled tire.
“It’s just the Next Gen racing game, right? Get the lead and got to hold on to it,” Reddick said. “Kyle did a really good job there taking away pretty much every option I had there to close the gap. He seemed pretty good in the middle, and I was obviously really good on the bottom, and he just never let me have it. I kept trying to run higher and higher and he’s kind of running in the middle of the racetrack, which is pretty efficient to block both lanes. Every time I sort of got close, we’re running just wide-open enough in Turn 1 and 2 [and] you can kind of defend pretty well.
“It’s frustrating. I feel like we were never up front really all day long until it got to the stage ends. We had a really good Nasty Beast Toyota Camry. Just stupid mistakes on pit road. Same [expletive], different year. Kind of frustrating. We’ll continue to work on it, but a good rebound for our team today.”
Noah Gragson finished sixth, Martin Truex Jr., seventh, Denny Hamlin, eighth, and polesitter Joey Logano, ninth. William Byron completed the top 10 after having to come from a lap down when a large piece of black plastic got stuck on the nose of his car and caused it to overheat. Byron was forced to pit under green on lap 47.
Logano led the first two laps of the race from pole and later was not a factor. It was Larson who took the lead from Logano on his way to dominating the day.
The first caution flew on lap 10 for Christopher Bell. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver blew a right rear tire. It was the first of multiple incidents for Bell, who spun off Turn 2 on lap 156 and blew another right rear tire near the end of the second stage.
Chris Buescher lost a right front wheel on lap 27 and hit the Turn 1 wall, resulting in NASCAR having to red flag the race to repair the wall. Buescher was the only driver who failed to finish the race.
There were 24 lead changes among 15 drivers in Sunday’s race and six cautions.