Las Vegas Cup: Practice Report

Tyler Reddick was fastest over a long run, on 24 laps. Kyle Larson was 0.036 seconds a lap back.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ran 22nd on long-run pace at $5,200, 33rd by salary.
Joey Logano is 7th by salary but ran 20th over a long run, on 32 laps.
AJ Allmendinger was 6th on one lap but 21st over a long run. That is qualifying speed, and it does not carry into the race.
Austin Cindric was only 28th on one lap but 13th over a long run, the kind of car the speed chart hides.

The session in numbers

cars ran

in NCS Final Practice

median laps

Half the field ran more than this. Under 10 laps is too few to read a long run.

+0.42s

track change

How much slower the track got per lap from the start of the session to the end, on equal tyres. The board takes this out.

+0.63s

tyre wear, 20 laps

How much slower a typical car was per lap on 20-lap-old tyres than on fresh ones. The board takes this out too.

The board

Every clean green lap from NCS Final Practice, with tyre wear and the track changing through the session taken out, so cars that ran at different times on different tyres compare fairly. Pit laps, caution laps and the lap into the pits are left out. Click a column to sort.

Long run	Driver	Team	Gap	Laps	One lap	Salary	vs price
1	Tyler Reddick	23XI Racing	fastest ±0.12	24	7	$10,500	+3
2	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	+0.036 ±0.11	33	2	$11,500	-1
3	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	+0.046 ±0.10	41	10	$10,700	0
4	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	+0.069 ±0.09	48	3	$11,000	-2
5	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	+0.091 ±0.10	37	1	$9,200	+3
6	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing	+0.152 ±0.11	35	9	$7,100	+10
7	Chase Briscoe	Joe Gibbs Racing	+0.159 ±0.09	51	4	$9,900	-1
8	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	+0.162 ±0.10	39	16	$8,200	+4
9	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	+0.171 ±0.11	36	11	$8,900	0
10	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	+0.173 ±0.10	40	13	$8,500	+1
11	Carson Hocevar	Spire Motorsports	+0.174 ±0.10	41	8	$8,700	-1
12	Daniel Suarez	Spire Motorsports	+0.186 ±0.10	39	5	$6,600	+8
13	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	+0.193 ±0.11	30	28	$7,900	0
14	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	+0.199 ±0.10	34	31	$7,000	+3
15	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	+0.214 ±0.11	30	12	$7,600	-1
16	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	+0.239 ±0.10	34	21	$7,300	-1
17	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	+0.240 ±0.10	39	14	$10,200	-12
18	Michael McDowell	Spire Motorsports	+0.247 ±0.10	37	27	$6,100	+6
19	Shane Van Gisbergen	Trackhouse Racing	+0.253 ±0.10	41	18	$6,500	+2
20	Joey Logano	Team Penske	+0.298 ±0.11	32	23	$9,500	-13
21	AJ Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	+0.323 ±0.10	37	6	$5,700	+7
22	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	HYAK Motorsports	+0.328 ±0.10	35	15	$5,200	+11
23	Zane Smith	Front Row Motorsports	+0.331 ±0.10	32	25	$6,200	0
24	Ryan Preece	RFK Racing	+0.334 ±0.10	45	32	$6,700	-5
25	Noah Gragson	Front Row Motorsports	+0.337 ±0.12	30	26	$5,400	+6
26	Erik Jones	Legacy Motor Club	+0.352 ±0.11	33	22	$6,300	-4
27	Connor Zilisch	Trackhouse Racing	+0.357 ±0.10	42	19	$5,800	0
28	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	+0.390 ±0.10	38	17	$5,900	-2
29	Josh Berry	Wood Brothers Racing	+0.418 ±0.13	22	36	$6,900	-11
30	Cole Custer	Haas Factory Team	+0.433 ±0.11	35	29	$4,800	+5
31	Austin Hill	Richard Childress Racing	+0.466 ±0.09	47	35	$5,600	-2
32	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	+0.495 ±0.12	29	30	$5,300	0
33	Riley Herbst	23XI Racing	+0.515 ±0.11	35	24	$6,000	-8
34	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	+0.535 ±0.11	31	20	$4,500	+2
35	John Hunter Nemechek		+0.590 ±0.11	31	–	–	–
36	Ty Dillon	Kaulig Racing	+0.647 ±0.11	32	33	$5,000	-2
–	John H. Nemechek	Legacy Motor Club	–	39	34	$5,500	–

Long run: Rank on long-run pace, fastest first. A dash means too few clean laps to score.
Gap: Seconds per lap slower than the fastest car. The ± is the range his pace could really sit in given how many laps he ran; two cars whose ranges overlap were not clearly different.
Laps: Laps run in the session.
One lap: Rank of his single fastest lap.
vs price: Places above (+) or below (−) his DraftKings salary rank that he ran in practice.

What stood out

Quicker than his price

Ran better than his salary says he should. The vs-price number is how many places above his salary rank he ran.

Driver	Laps	Long run	One lap	Salary	vs price
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	35	22nd	15th	$5,200	+11
Ross Chastain	35	6th	9th	$7,100	+10
Daniel Suarez	39	12th	5th	$6,600	+8
AJ Allmendinger	37	21st	6th	$5,700	+7
Michael McDowell	37	18th	27th	$6,100	+6

Slower than his price

Priced up, but practice did not back it up.

Driver	Laps	Long run	One lap	Salary	vs price
Joey Logano	32	20th	23rd	$9,500	-13
Ryan Blaney	39	17th	14th	$10,200	-12
Josh Berry	22	29th	36th	$6,900	-11
Riley Herbst	35	33rd	24th	$6,000	-8

One-lap car, not a long-run car

Quick over a single lap and well down over a long run. That is qualifying trim, and it does not carry into the race.

Driver	Laps	Long run	One lap	Salary	vs price
AJ Allmendinger	37	21st	6th	$5,700	+7
Cody Ware	31	34th	20th	$4,500	+2

Long-run car the one-lap board missed

The opposite: unremarkable on one lap, strong over a long run.

Driver	Laps	Long run	One lap	Salary	vs price
Austin Cindric	30	13th	28th	$7,900	+0
Brad Keselowski	34	14th	31st	$7,000	+3

Charts

Long-run pace against salary. Higher is faster. A car high on the chart and far left ran well above its price. Hover a dot for the driver. Not shown: Herbst, Ware, Dillon, more than 0.5 seconds a lap off.

Quicker than his priceSlower than his priceEveryone else

How the fastest cars held their pace. Lap time against tyre age for the top 8 on the board, on each car's longest run, smoothed over five laps, with the track changing through the session taken out. Faster is higher. A flat line kept its speed as the tyres wore; a line dropping to the right fell off.

Tyler ReddickKyle LarsonChristopher Bell4th to 8th

Team pace. The average long-run gap across each team's cars, for teams with two or more in the session. Shorter is faster. The number in brackets is how many cars the team ran.