Kyle Larson is the favorite in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson heads to one of his best tracks this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and hopes to once again win at the track.

Larson scored his first top five of the season at Phoenix on Sunday, rebounding for a third-place run after his car sat outside the top 10 for much of the race. 

Larson and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team enter Las Vegas as the favorites in the field, according to various betting websites. He leads the series in average finish at the track (9.0) with three victories and nine top 10 finishes. Joey Logano’s four wins lead active drivers.

The track is well-welcomed by Larson, who is riding a 28-race winless streak, his longest since joining Hendrick in 2021. Larson’s last win came at Kansas in May 2025. He has seven top fives in that span, including three second-place finishes. 

Larson’s Las Vegas fortunes aren’t just luck. He’s dominated 1.5-mile tracks since joining Hendrick. Larson has six race wins in the NextGen era (since 2022) at 1.5-mile tracks, more than double the next driver. Larson’s 16 stage wins in the era are also double the next closest driver.

Specifically at Las Vegas, Larson says it’s a fun track he enjoys running at.

“The bottom of the racetrack’s been the most favorable line,” Larson told reporters on Wednesday. “Restarts are crazy. I enjoy it. It’s a great track for the 5 team.”

Larson sits 10th in the series points standings. The revitalized chase format brings changes to the championship qualification format, but Larson says the mindset remains the same for his team.

“It maybe changes for the teams that, in the previous format, needed a win to get in,” Larson said. “But for a team like ours, who in our minds are going to be competing for a regular season championship and a season-long championship, it’s still all the same thing.”

Larson will be running in the NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races, as well as the sprint car High Limit Series race, giving him a full slate of racing this weekend. 

In the O’Reilly Series race, Larson will be teammates with Corey Day, a promising driver with a string of on-track incidents with competitors. Larson said it’s all a part of the learning curve from dirt tracks to stock cars and that he made similar mistakes early on in his career.

“I was with underfunded teams, if you want to call it that… so I felt like there was no pressure on me,” Larson said. “I definitely made my fair share of big mistakes early on in my career… so I also went through a lot of the same things that I feel like he’s going through on that side of it.”

The Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is Sunday at 4 p.m. Josh Berry is the defending winner.