Hendrick Motorsports Stands Out Against Dominant Toyotas at Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- Despite facing the day with questions about the new Chevrolet body's performance, Hendrick Motorsports had a standout day against the dominant Toyotas in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Hendrick's Kyle Larson earned the most stage points (18), finishing second to William Byron in the second stage after battling Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell in the first stage.

When the checkered flag flew, however, teammate Chase Elliott finished best of the Hendrick bunch -- in second.

Elliott challenged Denny Hamlin for the win, closing from a 1.5-second deficit to about a half-a-second. However, he couldn't get any closer and had to settle for second.

"I wish I had been a little tidier in those closing laps. It's a really fine line to paint the white line," Elliott said. "Bummed but, man, from where we've been running to how we ran today... Very large difference."

Elliott finished eighth and ninth in the stages and built better toward the finish. It was a passing grade for not only the Chevrolet body but also his No. 9 team.

"I think our improvements were probably more internal than they were a body change," he said.

Byron finished third overall after leading three times for 26 of 267 laps. He was quiet throughout the first stage, finishing sixth, as "weird balance issues" from practice carried over into the race.

"We were a little bit perplexed with what the car needed and then it seemed like the track rubbered in, it was like, 'Okay this is a lot more familiar for us,' so we got in that more familiar space for us here," Byron said.

Byron kept getting better as the run went on -- eventually challenging Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson and passing them for the stage win.

"In the second stage, it took off a little tight and then just kept working on it and the long run speed was really good. No matter what our balance was, our long run speed was really good so there was something that carried over from last year," Byron said.

Byron exited pit road third and finished there on the day -- marking his first top-five finish of the 2026 season.

Besides Hamlin, only Larson led more laps than Byron, leading three times for 62 laps and battling JGR's best most of the day.

Larson started fifth and worked his way up to second in the first stage on lap 80. Then, right after the second stage started with Hamlin in the back with a speeding penalty, he had an intense battle for the lead with Christopher Bell and Elliott before a push from Byron boosted him by. Byron later passed him as he car got better but Larson maintained in second.

Then, on a restart in the final stage, Bell put Larson three-wide and shuffled him back to fourth. Larson's car noticeably struggled to find pace in traffic at that point in the race -- putting him back to seventh at the checkered flag.

Larson finished behind three Toyotas -- Hamlin, Bell and Gibbs -- and just ahead of another -- Chase Briscoe. He took notice of the speed the Toyotas showed Sunday. 

"Denny was the class of the field today for sure. He had a lot of car potential, speed and grip and mph and everything it takes," Larson said. "I was watching him hound William there, running some funky angles and stuff, just shows how good his car was. They have something figured out. The Toyotas are really really fast and their cars are really gripped up and they can be on offense at all times."

Echoing Byron, Larson said the balance was weird at times but worked itself in as the race went on.

"I think overall it was very similar-ish race to what we had here in the past. We were able to lead some laps and the balance was just going back and forth. We'll keep dialing it in but it's a good start," Larson said.

Excluding Alex Bowman, who remains out with vertigo issues, Hendrick Motorsports' drivers are all in Chase contention heading into Darlington: