Denny Hamlin — winner: “Being part of Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing, that helps the situation. Over the last few races here, had a dominant car. Makes me look good when I can drive cars like this. I got to thank the whole team. They’re the ones that made all this happen. … I mean, I knew it took a few weeks to feel like driving (after a tumultuous offseason). Over the last couple weeks, I definitely regained my love of it, got refocused. These are great opportunities for us. This is a family sport. My family obviously had so much sacrifice to help me get here. Now that I’ve grown, generations of Hamlins following me. It’s great Mom gets to see this. I know Dad’s still saying, ‘That’s my boy.’ Hell of a day. My name stands out amongst — there’s the legends of the sport. I feel very fortunate to be on the list. Those guys were far more talented than I have ever thought about being. I just work really hard. I still to this day work really hard at my craft to try to continue to get better. Days like today certainly make me feel happy about where I’m at in the sport still and what I can still do.”
Chase Elliott — second: “It was definitely better there towards the end than we had started the run. I thought there might be an opportunity. I knew that he was starting to get tight there at the end of runs. Yeah, man, as bummed as I am to come up that close to a win, I have to kind of bring myself back to a reality check, how much better we ran today than we’ve been running. I’m balancing that, right? Obviously these things are hard to win. We had a great opportunity to do it. But really proud of the effort throughout the week, preparation, yesterday. Just kind of fighting through a not-so-good day. Getting up there in the mix with the guys that win a lot of these races anymore. Really proud of that. Obviously it was a really solid day. Obviously bummed to come up that short. Wish I could have pieced together just a little better couple laps there towards the end. Trying to be as tidy as I could be. He did a really good job. Congrats to him for holding his ground there and putting together a good five or six, because it looked like a handful. Yeah, I don’t know. Just kind of mixed feelings.”
William Byron — third: “Yeah, I thought we were in a pretty good restart lane. Everything went well. I got super loose into three, got in a bad spot. I hate that because I feel like it hurt my tires, heated them up. It was hard to make ground up after that. This is a good run for us. The Chevrolet team was really good today. I just feel like this is more what we’re accustomed to. Proud to see that effort, everyone back at the shop working hard on the new body, kind of getting everything dialed in. Hopefully, we can put more runs together like this and keep stringing them up. It’s a lot of laps, but it’s a familiar place. For us drivers, we don’t mind it. You get to try a lot of different stuff, stuff inside the car, comforts that you really don’t get a chance to. Definitely happy to do the test. Hopefully, we can learn a ton. The last time we tested, I can’t remember the track. But we came up with a lot of information that helped us a ton. Hopefully, we can use that information tomorrow and help our mile-and-a-half program throughout the year because obviously the 11 was really strong today, and all the Toyotas. Still got work to do.
Christopher Bell — fourth: “I don’t know. We weren’t at our best at the right time. Whenever this Interstate Batteries Toyota team were at our best, I didn’t feel like I drove a very good race. At times, I felt like I had plenty of speed, and a great long run car in the first stage – we drove to the lead, and then I never executed the restarts very well. So, great finish, great day for JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). Still looking for that first win though.”
Ty Gibbs — fifh: “It was good. Unfortunately, I sped, but I felt like we were really good all day. Thank you to my No. 54 Toyota team, and everyone that helps us out. It was a fun day.”
Kyle Larson — seventh: “In the second stage, we were getting really loose. And then to start the final stage, I just didn’t get the launch I needed or the push I needed. I was side-by-side with them and then (Christopher) Bell had a big run behind me and it was going to be hard to block. They got by and I fell back to fourth, and then my balance was just kind of tight that run. I was hoping to get to a green flag stop, that way we could be in traffic and maybe my balance would be in a good spot and we would have a shot to race for the win. We had that caution just before the cycle was about to start. On the next run, I was just really loose, and I was just kind of hanging on. Overall, it was good to get another top-10 finish for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team. I wish we would have had the balance in a little better place, but it was back and forth every run. All-in-all, it was a good day and I’m happy with it. Chase (Elliott) did an awesome job and William (Byron) was really fast. We had our moments of being fast, so we can look at it and keep building on it.”
Chase Briscoe — eighth: “For one, we had a really good Toyota. That helped. We were able to keep coming through the field. We were fortunate to catch a caution. We just had a really, really good car. I would have loved to not have sped on pit road and bury us because I felt like we could have been in the mix. Just have to clean up my part. You can’t be making those mistakes at the Cup level. It takes you out of a race. Glad we were able to recover; it could have been way worse than what it was. We will go on to Darlington, a place we are really good, and see if we have another good one.”
Austin Dillon — 12th: “It was a good, solid day. Our Chevrolet was tight for most of the race but Richard Boswell and everyone on this team kept working on it every chance that we had. The last adjustment we made was the best and helped us take off on the restart. I wish we had one more stop to make the same adjustment again. This group is capable of these results and we will keep building off this.”
AJ Allmendinger — 24th: “It was a hard-fought battle all day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We would get tight behind other cars and were slow down the straightaways, and edgy in the corners. It felt like the car was going to snap out from under me at times. The guys worked hard on it when we had the chance. We just kept fighting, but we just never quite got it where we needed it to be. This was a hard one because we’re usually pretty fast here. We’ll put this one behind us, and focus on getting better as we head into Darlington.”
Kyle Busch — 28th: “It was a tough afternoon here at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but the enter No. 8 Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet team never gave up. We had a Top 15 car in practice, but qualified lower than we’d have hoped and started deep in the field. We went down a lap early and were never able to make that track position up. We learned a lot on the West coast and will now head back east and look to rebound next weekend in Darlington.”
Connor Zilisch — 32nd: “It was just a tough day for this No. 88 Jockey 150th Anniversary Chevrolet team. We didn’t really fire-off great. I felt like we could be good on the long run and make ground up, and then on the restart, we would just fall back and loose all the ground we would make up. I don’t know what happened with Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.). He was pitting and I didn’t see him wave us off. It just caught me by surprise when he checked-up in the middle of the corner and that kind of ended our day from there.”
Ty Dillon — 33rd: “There were more ups and downs this whole weekend at Las Vegas. It just wasn’t the kind of weekend we know we are capable of. We know we can be better for sure. We started kind of behind and just couldn’t get the balance right today. We hit it somewhat there near the end, and kind of made a swing for it. When you hardly get any cautions in the race, it’s hard to battle out of that situation. Now we’ll get ready for Darlington and get back to running like we know we can.”
