After saving his car from potential doom and getting to the lead thanks to quick work by his pit crew, Kyle Larson held off a last-lap charge by Christopher Bell to win the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This mark's Larson's fourth win of the 2023 season and a victory that makes him the first driver to advance to the Championship 4 in the NASCAR playoffs. Larson will now be guaranteed an opportunity to race for the championship, offering him a chance to win his second Cup title after previously taking the crown in 2021.
Some nervous moments for Larson throughout the day culminated in the final 10 laps, when Christopher Bell began to eat away at the two-second lead that Larson had built up. Bell eventually closed in to well within half a second in the last handful of laps, and his chance came on the final lap when Larson ran up on the lapped cars of Todd Gilliland and Erik Jones.
While both lapped cars yielded to the leaders, Larson's momentum was disturbed just enough that Bell was able to use his momentum off the high side of the racetrack to get a run on Larson off Turn 4 coming to the checkered flag. Larson blocked Bell successfully, taking the victory by .082 seconds.
South Point 400 official results
- #5 - Kyle Larson
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #8 - Kyle Busch
- #6 - Brad Keselowski
- #1 - Ross Chastain
- #24 - William Byron
- #45 - Tyler Reddick
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #11 - Denny Hamlin
- #17 - Chris Buescher
Larson maximized his day by leading 133 of 267 laps and winning both stages, but his day wasn't without moments of nervousness even before Bell's late rally. Trying to run down Brad Keselowski for the lead late in Stage 2, Larson got sideways and nearly spun before clipping the outside wall with his right rear fender, setting his car back straight.
"I was hoping those lappers were gonna give me the bottom, and the 38 peeled off to the bottom and I knew I couldn't follow him. I just didn't want to go all the way to the top and leave the middle open," Larson told NBC Sports. "Thankfully Christopher always races extremely clean. It could've got crazier than it did coming to the start/finish line, so thank you to him for racing with respect there.
"What a job done by my team, too. Just a great race car. I almost gave it away there in 1 and 2, getting sideways, getting in the wall. Had to fight back from there with our balance.They got it much closer there in the lead. I was happy to pull away as much as we did and was hoping that was gonna be enough to maintain -- which it was -- but I thought they weren't gonna be able to get as close as they did there at the end. Nerve-wracking.
"... This is really cool to get to go race for another championship here in a few weeks. Glad that we don't have to stress over these next two races."
This marks the second time that Larson has advanced to the Championship 4 by virtue of winning the first race of the Round of 8, something that bodes well for him based on past precedent. The winner of the first race of the Round of 8 has gone on to win the Cup championship four times -- Jimmie Johnson in 2016, Joey Logano in 2018 and 2022, and Larson in 2021 -- including each of the past two seasons.
The .082 margin of victory by Larson over Bell also marked the second-closest finish in any Cup race in Las Vegas Motor Speedway history, a mark that ranks second only to when Jimmie Johnson beat Matt Kenseth by .045 to win at Las Vegas in March 2006. That 2006 race was the last before Las Vegas was reconfigured and had its banking increased, making Sunday's race the closest finish at this track since that reconfiguration.
The playoff picture
The razor-sharp margin of victory ended up being the difference between Bell automatically making the Championship 4 for the second year in a row and having to sweat out the rest of the Round of 8 along with the seven other playoff drivers who've yet to advance. Sunday's race marked a major net positive for Bell, who went from eight points below the cut line to just three below, but he nonetheless lamented on pit road the thin margin between what might have been and what he now confronts.
"I don't know what else I could've done. I feel like that was my moment to make the Final Four, and I didn't quite capture it," Bell told NBC Sports. "Coming to the checkered there I knew that he was gonna be blocking, so I was like, 'I'm gonna try and go high,' and he went high. But I don't even know if I had a run to get by him there coming to the line. It wasn't enough.
"But a great day for sure to get those stage points and get a second-place finish out of it. I think I saw we're minus two, so we're not out of it by any means. But it would've been nice to lock in."
Larson and Bell would lead the way on a day where all eight playoff drivers enjoyed a race free of catastrophic issues, with all eight finishing inside the top 11. The only driver who really came close to having major problems was Martin Truex Jr., as a mid-race pit call to stay out on old tires would cost him track position and mire him in midpack for much of the going. But still, Truex was able to rally over the final run to a ninth-place finish, his first finish inside the top 15 -- let alone his first top 10 -- since Watkins Glen in August.
That was, until post-race inspection completely changed the complexion of how the day went. Sunday night, NASCAR announced that Ryan Blaney's car failed post-race inspection, disqualifying the No. 12 Ford after it was found that his left front shock did not meet the overall specified length in the NASCAR rule book. Instead of a sixth-place finish, Blaney was credited with 36th.
At race's end, Blaney had been only 17 points below the cut line entering the next race of the Round of 8 at Homestead. But by virtue of the penalty, Blaney is now a staggering 56 points back of the cut line, effectively putting him in a must-win scenario if he is to advance to the Championship 4.
The ripple effect of Blaney's disqualification has altered the complexion of the points standings for other playoff contenders as well. William Byron goes from nine points above the cut line to 11 points above, while Denny Hamlin is now four points above and Martin Truex Jr. three above.
Bell (-3) is the first car below the cut line, followed by Tyler Reddick (-15) and Chris Buescher (-23), who did not enjoy the best of points days despite a top-10 finish. Buescher did not record a single point in either of the two stages, limiting his opportunities to make up points on the cut line.
Race results rundown
- One week after his elimination from the playoffs, Kyle Busch enjoyed a nice homecoming with a third-place finish at his home track. Coupled with a third-place finish last weekend at the Charlotte Roval, this marks the first time Busch has earned consecutive top-five finishes since a pair of fifth-place finishes at Chicago and Atlanta back in July.
- One of two drivers to suffer tire failures leading to crashes in practice on Saturday, Daniel Suarez enjoyed a somewhat quiet but ultimately productive day in a backup car. Suarez drove from the rear of the field all the way to 14th at the finish, some 10 spots behind Trackhouse Racing teammate Ross Chastain in fifth.
- As part of an ongoing crackdown on drivers laying back from the car in front of them to try and gain forward momentum on restarts, two different drivers were penalized for restart violations in Sunday's race. AJ Allmendinger would eventually recover from his penalty to earn a 20th-place finish, while Chase Elliott's day would be doomed by the same penalty -- he finished a lap down in 31st.
- The only two non-playoff drivers to lead laps on Sunday were Brad Keselowski, who paced the field five times for 38 laps, as well as -- wait for it -- JJ Yeley. Yeley led two laps during an early cycle of green flag pit stops before finishing 28th.
- Though there was no rash of tire failures in Sunday's race, they still presented different sorts of issues for certain teams at certain intervals. Both of the Legacy Motor Club cars suffered right rear tire failures, including one that sent Carson Hocevar into the wall and out of the race. Meanwhile, a botched pit stop would lead to Ty Gibbs' right front tire falling off and coming apart on-track, relegating Gibbs to a 33rd-place finish.
Next race
The NASCAR Cup Series takes the Round of 8 and the championship battle to South Beach for the 4EVER 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
