Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas – Motorsports Tribune

Regardless of what happened over the final five laps, the Pennzoil 400 was a one-sided beatdown no matter how you slice it.

And it might be a sign of things to come, at least on the intermediate tracks this season, as the Cup Series Next Gen age of parity might have come and gone after just one season as it’s clear that Chevrolet has taken the lead when it comes to horsepower and aerodynamics.

On Sunday, William Byron and Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports were the 1a and 1b of the field, clean air largely dictating who could drive away with Alex Bowman running top-5 throughout the race. They finished 1-2-3 on Sunday as well.

The difference between the Hendrick Chevrolets and Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas was best articulated by Denny Hamlin on his Actions Detrimental podcast on Sunday night when he said the 24 and 5 could just ‘straightaway’ him when he was behind or be immediately flanked by both sides when he somehow got track position on them.

“My goodness, I had a tough time holding those guys off when I got the lead,” Hamlin said. “I get to the start-finish line and it’s like ‘which side are they coming from, the left or the right,’ and I couldn’t hold them off.

“They were fast, smokin’ fast, Hendrick and Chevrolets in general. Toyotas had a great run as well. We were the next in line. We were third, fourth, fifth and sixth best cars after that.”

It is potentially a sign of the times right now because the Gen-7 is a fixed spec platform, with no means to R&D components, and it seems like the Hendrick Chevrolets (and probably Trackhouse, too) have an advantage. That doesn’t mean Toyota (or to a lesser extent, Ford) can’t win on the intermediates this season, because everything is still relatively close, but Hendrick (and probably Trackhouse) have clearly separated themselves at this stage of the Next Gen life cycle.

With No. 24 crew chief Rudy Fugle wasn’t surprised to see his team with the best cars, even he was surprised to see William sweep all three stages on Sunday, because that’s not something that happened in 2022.

The intermediates had way more parity in the first season with the platform, even as Chevrolet started to find more consistency on downforce tracks into the fall.

 “I think since the beginning of last year, Chevrolet has had a really good product, a really good car,” Fugle said. “That group just did a really good job of giving us a good body. We have great engines….