NASCAR race at Las Vegas: William Byron wins thanks to restart

William Byron led 176 laps on Sunday — and that included the final one.

The 24 car swept all three stages at Las Vegas Motor Speedway en route to his first win of the 2023 season. It also marked the first win for Hendrick Motorsports on the year — reminding the rest of the field how dangerous Hendrick cars are on intermediate tracks: HMI teammate Kyle Larson finished second, and HMI teammate Alex Bowman finished third.

This was Byron’s fifth victory in 183 races.

“I’ve just been really confident about the guys that I have on this 24 team,” Byron told the Fox broadcast after the win. “They work extremely hard, and we spend a lot of time in the offseason just going through and running through the sim with Chevy and running on iRacing and trying to get better as a racecar driver and the team. It’s all about the team.”

The race ultimately came down to an exciting late-race restart. With four laps to the good, Larson had a three-second lead over second-placed Byron when Aric Almirola got loose and spun into the wall. That prompted a caution and meant overtime and a crucial pit stop.

Martin Truex Jr. elected to stay out and took the lead spot. Larson and Byron went down pit road and both took two tires, and Byron ever-so-slightly edged Larson on that pit stop to give him second place on the restart.

After a good jump, Byron maneuvered around Truex with ease and subsequently held off Larson until he was able to do a celebratory burnout and fetch the checkered flag. Sunday marked Byron’s first victory and his fourth Top 10 in 11 races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Larson was happy for his teammate post-race. But he also will probably look back on Sunday and imagine what would’ve happened had that final caution not come.

What was he thinking about when the caution came out with a few laps to go? “Damn,” he said with a laugh.

“It’s just part of Cup racing it seems like,” Larson said. “You count laps down, lap-by-lap, and then sure enough the yellow lights come on, so yeah I mean you just gotta try 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’ve just done a really good job and got him out in front of us, and that (meant we) gave up the front row, so I knew I was in trouble.”

Larson added: “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 a little bit better there at the end.”

The race saw 13 total lead changes and eight leaders. Among them: Byron led 176, Larson led 63 (a bulk of which was before that restart), Denny Hamlin led 10 and Joey Logano led nine. The only Hendrick car that didn’t finish in the Top 5 was the No. 9 car driven by Josh Berry, who replaced Chase Elliott after he sustained an injury to his left leg after a snowboarding accident this past weekend.

Sunday saw about as clean a Cup race as possible. There were a total of four cautions for 26 laps.

The only other caution-prompting crash besides Almirola’s aforementioned one came in Stage 3 in Lap 183: Logano got squeezed into the wall running three-wide alongside Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch and subsequently spun out. That ended his day.

Logano didn’t collect anyone in his wreck and it certainly didn’t affect Byron — the 25-year-old Charlotte native who pretty much locked in a playoff spot with Sunday’s win.

Unofficial results from Las Vegas Motor Speedway

This story was originally published March 5, 2023, 7:39 PM.