Kyle Larson Drives Chevrolet to Third Consecutive NASCAR Cup Series Victory of the 2024 Season

 
· In dominating fashion, Kyle Larson and the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Camaro ZL1 team earned their first victory of the season in the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – extending Chevrolet’s streak as the only manufacturer to win a points-paying race in the NASCAR Cup Series this season.

· In the Next Gen car’s third season of competition in the NASCAR Cup Series, this marks the second time Chevrolet has swept the first three races of the season – also accomplishing the feat in 2023 when the Camaro ZL1 won four-straight races.
TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL TOP-10:
POS. DRIVER

1st – Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Camaro ZL1

4th – Ross Chastain, No. 1 Kubota Camaro ZL1

10th – William Byron, No. 24 Z HP Camaro ZL1

· Larson swept the stage wins and led a race-high 181 laps en route to his third career NASCAR Cup Series win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – his 24th victory in 334 career starts in NASCAR’s premier series.

· The victory is Hendrick Motorsports’ series-leading 10th NASCAR Cup Series triumph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – with five of those victories coming in the series’ past seven races at the track.

· Larson drove Chevrolet to its 13th all-time NASCAR Cup Series victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – four of which have come in the five races that the Next Gen car has competed at the 1.5-mile Nevada oval.

· Larson delivered Chevrolet its 854th all-time victory in NASCAR Cup Series competition, extending the manufacturer’s record as the winningest manufacturer in series’ history.

· With Larson’s NASCAR Cup Series win and Rajah Caruth’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend, Chevrolet continues the streak of earning at least one win in the NASCAR national ranks each weekend since the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course events in October 2023.

· The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season continues at Phoenix Raceway with the Shriners Children’s 500 on Sunday, March 10, at 3:30 P.M. ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
 
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE QUOTES:

Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Camaro ZL1
Finished: 1st
“I knew Tyler (Reddick) was going to be the guy to beat. From the first stage, he was really fast there. I was hoping those guys were going to get racing a little bit longer behind me because I felt it was going to time out to where he was running really hard and getting the tow to catch me at the end. Thankfully, I was able to air lock him a couple of laps and get him tight. I thought (Reddick) and Bubba (Wallace) were going to get working together again to build a run, so I was happy that didn’t happen.

All in all, such a great, great job by this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team. Just their execution, restarts, pit road.. all of that was great. Cool to get a win here in Las Vegas again, back-to-back, and swept all the stages. Can’t ask for much more than that.”

Ross Chastain, No. 1 Kubota Camaro ZL1
Finished: 4th
What can you take from this mile-and-a-half and apply to others?
“This speed. I mean the handling of the car is incredible for our Kubota Chevy. It’s everything that I wanted, dream about, and wake up and train for is to drive cars like this. That’s what makes it hurt so much worse. When we finish fourth and we were legitimately an eighth-place car, it’s something we’re high-fiving. You all have seen me in my career, I’d jump up and down for a fourth place finish. If someone is just glancing at my interviews, they’re going to say, “Well, Ross is changing,” but I’m not. When I have a car capable of fighting for the win, and I take ourselves out, that’s what I can get down about right now, but excited about because I know how good the car was and how much speed it has.”

From the start of the race, speeds dropped five miles per hour in Turn 1. What was it like and how hard was it to hold on?
“Yeah, there were times where if I wasn’t tucked up within five car lengths of somebody, I’d have significantly less RPM and speed down the front. I couldn’t catch them because I was inhibited by the wind, and they had the draft. Think of the DRS trains in Formula 1. Once those DRS trains get going, the guys that are out of it, they lose so much of it. We’re not losing as much. But there were times where I was 16th place, but I’m three seconds behind 15th and there are no cars, and they get bottled up, and I get with them, and I’m picking up 200 RPMs on the front stretch just being in their draft. So, it was pretty wild because as much as I loved that draft on the straightaway, you’d get into the corner and I didn’t want to be behind them. It’s a lot of fun racing. I passed a lot of cars today. That part I was smiling, but knowing I had a car enough to compete today, it just hurts.”

Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Freeway Insurance Camaro ZL1
Finished: 11th
“It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t really happy with the balance of the No. 99 Freeway Insurance Chevy. The front of the car never turned the entire race. The back of the car was going away on the long run. Sometimes we were making the car a little bit better in the long run, but the front just never turned all race long. Just have to see everything to figure out how we can be a little better next time.”

Austin Dillon, No. 3 BetMGM Camaro ZL1
Finished: 16th
“P-16 finish for the No. 3 BetMGM Chevy. We got stage points in Stage 2. The BetMGM Chevy was pretty good in the middle of the race. Didn’t make a big enough adjustment there at the end and got really tight.

Unfortunate. We had a pretty solid day around the top-10 all day. We weren’t able to come home with one, but it was a big improvement from where we’ve been. We were one adjustment away from being in the top-10, for sure.”

Daniel Hemric, No. 31 South Point Hotel and Casino Camaro ZL1
Finished: 19th
“We fired off decent in the race, but within a few laps, the No. 31 South Point Chevy just started getting tight. A speeding penalty set us back a bit, but fortunately we were able to get the lap back. We ran the best we had all day during those last couple of runs, and we were able to grab another top-20 finish.”
 
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

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