When the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season began, many wondered how the Chevrolets would perform with their new bodies. Through five races, the manufacturer is still searching for its first win of the season after Denny Hamlin’s dominant performance at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
Hamlin admitted after the race that Tyler Reddick’s three consecutive wins to begin the season “fueled” him, giving Toyota four victories so far this year. After Reddick’s historic start, it was Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney who became the first driver not named Reddick to win a race this season at Phoenix Raceway, leaving Chevrolet as the only manufacturer without a victory through five races.
However, the 1.5-mile track in Sin City presented Chevrolet with arguably its best opportunity to secure that first win of the season, particularly for Hendrick Motorsports. While William Byron and Kyle Larson entered the weekend with four combined wins there, they came away empty-handed with finishes of third and seventh, respectively.
The driver who made the biggest statement was runner-up Chase Elliott. Sure, Byron and Larson led a combined 88 laps, but NASCAR’s most popular driver was able to methodically work his way up through the field after qualifying 15th and was even running Hamlin down in the closing laps before the checkered flag waved.
Chase Elliott has encouraging race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
With Elliott and Byron both inside the top five, the new Chevrolet body had a solid debut on a 1.5-mile oval, and in a race that only featured one caution for incident. Elliott’s performance, though, may have even overshadowed that when you consider the rough stretch he has gone through since the inception of the Next Gen car in 2022.
Yes, he equaled a career-high in wins with five in 2022, but that is when everything took a turn. Early in the 2023 season, Elliott fractured his leg in a snowboarding accident and missed six races. He was also suspended for one raceafter hooking Hamlin in the right rear during the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He ultimately missed the playoffs that season and failed to win a single race.
In the past two seasons, he has won a combined three races and has struggled to consistently run at the front of the field. By comparison, Larson and Byron have 15 wins between them during that span and led a total of 4,492 laps. Elliott, meanwhile, only paced the field for 885 laps in 2024 and 2025, which is far from the career-high 1,247 he led during his 2020 championship-winning season.