Chastain leads Cup Series practice in Las Vegas

03/15/2025 03:31 PM

Ross Chastain was the fastest in NASCAR Cup Series practice Saturday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway at 187.846mph (28.747s).

The Trackhouse Racing driver was the only one who cracked 187mph in practice. He set the fastest lap on his second lap on the track.

Bubba Wallace was second fastest at 186.290mph, William Byron third at 186.175mph, Kyle Larson fourth at 185.982mph and Austin Dillon fifth at 185.695mph.

Larson is the defending race winner in Las Vegas.

Noah Gragson ran sixth fastest at 185.459mph, Chase Elliott seventh at 185.433mph and Christopher Bell eighth at 185.350mph. Bell is looking for his fourth consecutive Cup Series win Sunday afternoon.

Michael McDowell was ninth fastest at 185.236mph and Chris Buescher completed the top 10 at 185.008mph.

Almost all of the fastest laps in practice were set within a driver's first six laps on track, the exception being Ryan Blaney, who ran his fastest lap on his 11th.

Blaney, however, only ran 18 laps before the right rear tire blew on his Team Penske Ford Mustang. The incident happened in Turn 2, putting him into a half spin, with his car bouncing off the wall with the rear bumper. Blaney drove the car back to the garage to the attention of his race team.

He will not make a qualifying run because of the crash. The team will attempt to fix the primary car for Sunday's race.

There were no other incidents during practice.

Chastain also paced the best 10 consecutive lap average over Byron, Wallace, Tyler Reddick, and Alex Bowman.

There are 36 cars entered in Las Vegas — all chartered teams.

NEXT: Cup Series qualifying at 11:40 a.m. local time.