Team Penske proved its recent form at 1.5-mile tracks was no fluke, putting all three entries inside the top 10 in Sunday's South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and keeping the organization's championship hopes firmly intact.
Following last week's showing at Kansas Speedway where Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney cracked the top five, questions lingered over whether the organization could sustain its upward trajectory in Sin City. The champion teammates of Blaney and Joey Logano quickly climbed from mid-pack starting spots. Blaney raced to third in the opening stage, with Cindric two positions behind. Logano narrowly missed stage points, taking the green-and-checkered flag in 12th place.
Props to everybody for that. That's encouraging. Just try to keep going; try to take little chunks at a time.
While championship hopefuls stumbled throughout the 267-lap affair, all three Penske cars remained steady. The lone misstep came from the No. 2 team, which fumbled its pit stop at the conclusion of Stage 1. A Lap 94 debris caution allowed crew chief Brian Wilson to pivot on strategy, calling Cindric to pit road while the bulk of the field stayed out. Cindric stretched his fuel mileage to the end of the stage, finishing runner-up to Chase Briscoe.
"We didn't start the race necessarily as close as we needed to and didn't start practice as close as we needed to, but the guys worked on it all day and gave us some strengths that we didn't have before," Cindric said after the race, earning consecutive top-five finishes for the first time in his 182-race career. "It takes a great team."
Blaney scored 15 stage points Sunday afternoon, tied with Cindric for third-most in the race. During a caution-free final segment, Cindric passed his teammate to finish fourth, giving both drivers top-five finishes in consecutive weeks. Logano rounded out the top 10.
With Kyle Larson's early woes, Blaney gained 11 points on his championship deficit, now 80 markers behind the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Logano surrendered only four points to the championship lead, a net positive for the No. 22 team at an intermediate track.
"Our mile-and-a-half stuff has definitely been getting better and better," Blaney told NASCAR.com. "Props to everybody for that. That's encouraging. Just try to keep going; try to take little chunks at a time."
Logano was pleased with the progress compared to the Las Vegas race in March, when he finished 15th. That makes consecutive strong performances at 1.5-mile tracks for the No. 22 team, though he corded a tire in the waning laps at Kansas and limped to 20th in the final rundown.
Cindric remains ninth on the Chase grid and needs to convert a few Hail Marys to erase a 128-point deficit with five races remaining in the 2026 season. Logano (minus-71) and Blaney (minus-80), meanwhile, still believe they are within striking distance as the postseason schedule continues.
The swing of intermediate races concludes on Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Penske earned a pair of top 10s with Blaney seventh and Logano eighth during the Coca-Cola 600 in May.
