Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway marked the fifth race of the NASCAR Cup Series season.

But as the first true intermediate 1½-mile race of the season, it proved to be a measuring stick moment.

Here is a look at who had a good day and who had a bad day:

Good: Chase Elliott

Elliott and his Chevrolet teammates got a lot of good answers about the new Camaro ZL1 Cup Series car.

After starting 15th, Elliott finished second and was making a late charge to challenge winner Denny Hamlin for the lead.

Elliott finished .504 seconds behind Hamlin, but was looking at the positives of a strong run.

“From where we’ve been to how we ran today, not really comparable,” Elliott said. “As bummed as I am, I have to kind of check myself back to reality to understand how big of an improvement that was.”

Elliott was coming off a 23rd-place finish the previous week in Phoenix.

“Disappointing for sure,” Elliott said of missing out on the win. ”I felt like our car was a little better there on the longer runs. I thought Denny was starting to fall off.”

Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates had strong runs. William Bryon finished third, and Kyle Larson led 62 laps and finished seventh.

Bad: Shane van Gisbergen

New Zealand native Shane van Gisbergen has made strides early in his second Cup Series season. But his race in Las Vegas almost ended before it started.

In the opening laps of Sunday’s race, van Gisbergen got loose coming off Turn 4. The front of his car grazed Chase Briscoe’s car, and van Gisbergen saved his sliding car from more damage.

He dropped 17 spots early from his 16th starting position and could never recover, finishing last (36th).

Reports from van Gisbergen’s radio said he suffered front splitter damage. Van Gisbergen entered the race fifth in the drivers point standings and fell to 16th.

Under the new NASCAR playoff format, the top 16 drivers in the standings make the playoffs. The win-and-in format is gone, which helped van Gisbergen last year when he won four road course races in the regular season.

Good: RFK Racing

The new playoff format could benefit the consistency of RFK Racing (Roush-Fenway Keselowski Racing), and the team showcased that Sunday.

Chris Buescher was the highest-finishing driver for the team in sixth. Brad Keselowski, after starting 28th, finished 10th, and Ryan Preece was 11th.

RFK Racing was the top performing Ford team and the third-highest performing team after Joe Gibbs Racing had all four of its cars in the top eight, and three of the four Hendrick Motorsports cars were in the top seven.

“The team went to work,” said Buescher, who picked up his best finish of the season and is ninth in the drivers standings.

“We went for it all day long. Good pit stops. Good restarts. Our car handled well. A solid first true mile-and-a-half of the year to give us a good read going forward.”

Keselowski moved from 16th to 12th in the standings, and Preece jumped from 18th to 13th.

Bad: Josh Berry

Last year’s Pennzoil 400 was the first Cup Series win for Josh Berry and 100th victory for legendary NASCAR team Wood Brothers Racing.

There wasn’t a repeat of the team’s luck Sunday. Berry qualified 32nd and finished 31st at three laps down.

Berry was speeding on pit road during green flag pit stops on lap 122 and had to serve a pass-through penalty and never recovered. He fell to 32nd in points.

Good: Ty Gibbs

A speeding penalty on lap 83 almost ruined Ty Gibbs’ day. But it didn’t.

Gibbs battled to earn a fifth-place finish for his third consecutive top-five finish of the season.

Gibbs finished fourth in Stage 1 and then was penalized while pitting during the caution in the stage break. Gibbs moved up five spots in the drivers standings to 10th

“I wasn’t as fast as Denny was to get through the field. … I had a great time. Just, unfortunately, I sped and just stubbed myself there, but we fought back,” Gibbs said.

Bad: Local drivers

There would be no home cooking for any of the three Cup Series drivers from Las Vegas.

Riley Herbst was the highest-finishing Las Vegas native in 23rd at one lap down. Kyle Busch finished two laps down in 28th, and Noah Gragson was two laps down in 30th.

The three started 20th or worse and could never find the speed to race toward the front. All three were outside the top 20 and a lap down after Stage 1.

Busch’s winless streak has extended to 98 races. June, 4, 2023, was the last time he won a Cup Series race.

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.

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