Pennzoil 400: Josh Berry earns first career Cup Series win at Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — For the first time in his career, Josh Berry is finally a race winner in the NASCAR Cup Series after passing Daniel Suárez with 14 laps to go, resulting in the Wood Brothers Racing driver winning the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The 34-year-old native of Hendersonville, Tennessee, picked up his first career win in the premier series in his second full-time season. Berry also scored the 101st Cup Series win for the Wood Brothers in Sin City, after Harrison Burton picked up No. 100 in last year’s Daytona summer race.

“Oh, man, I don’t even know what to think,” Berry said. “Just awesome. I love this track. Las Vegas has been so good to me. So many great moments here. Just struggled in the Next Gen car here, but Miles [Stanley] and this whole 21 team, everybody at Wood Brothers Racing, they gave me a great car today. Just battled and battled and battled. Man, it was our day. I just can’t believe it.

“It’s just been incredible, they’ve been so good to me. It’s just been a great relationship. Obviously thank everybody, the Wood Brothers Racing, but Team Penske as well. They’ve welcomed me with open arms and tried to help me and accelerate this learning process as much as I can.”

The Wood Brothers also claimed its first victory at Las Vegas. With this victory, the Wood Brothers have now secured back-to-back Cup Series wins for the first time since the 1986 and 1987 seasons.

Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suárez had his best performance of the 2025 Cup Series season after bringing his No. 99 Freeway Insurance Chevrolet to a runner-up finish. Suárez was up front with less than 20 laps to go but could not hang on to the lead.

“Definitely a little disappointed, but first of all, congratulations to Josh Berry and the No. 21 team,” Suárez said. “They did a great job and they’ve been fast. The No. 99 Freeway Insurance Chevy team did everything right. The pit crew did an amazing job with the pit stops. We did everything right with the strategy. Our Chevy was fast, but we just struggled a little bit on the short runs.

“I mentioned to my crew chief — before the last run, I told him that if we’re going to be up front, we’re going to need a better car for the short run. I was having too much contact over there in (turns) one and two. Unfortunately, I think that’s why we lost the race. We just had a little bit too much contact. I almost wrecked in one and two.”

The third-place finisher and RFK Racing driver Ryan Preece had his No. 60 Consumer Cellular Ford up toward the front at the end of the race to tie his career-best finish in the Cup Series.

“Going into the season the motto is live by the fire, die by the fire and take chances, be aggressive, be on the offense and just put us in position,” Preece said. “Man, I’m happy for Josh [Berry]. I really liked him when we were teammates and I’m just super proud of everybody on this Consumer Cellular Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

“I just can’t thank Jack Roush, Brad Keselowski, Kroger, Mohawk Northeast, Fifth Third Bank and the list goes on and on — Build Submarines, Castrol, for the opportunity. I’ve been told I’m mid very often by people and I’m glad I feel Josh said he felt like himself again and I felt the same today.”

Results from the 2025 Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas are listed below:

Other Race Facts

Josh Berry statistics:

• Becomes the first NASCAR Cup Series driver to earn his first career win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
• The next driver in a long line of drivers that have earned their first Cup Series victory with the Wood Brothers: Berry joins Harrison Burton, Ryan Blaney, Trevor Bayne and Elliott Sadler as drivers in the 21st century who have accomplished that feat. All of these were also the team’s most recent victories in the Cup Series.
• The 12th fastest active driver to secure his first Cup Series victory, accomplishing the feat in 52 starts.
• The first NASCAR Weekly Series champion to win a Cup Series race, according to Steven Taranto.

Kyle Larson’s No. 5 team is the only team to have won more than one stage in the first five races of the 2025 Cup Series season. However, this race marked the first time in his Cup Series career that he did not win the race at Las Vegas after winning Stage 2.

Hendrick Motorsports had all four drivers inside the top 10 for a second consecutive week. William Byron was fourth, followed by Alex Bowman (seventh), Larson (ninth) and Chase Elliott (10th).

Byron has also finished inside the top six in 11 of the last 12 races.

Trackhouse Racing had two cars finish inside the top five, with Daniel Suárez finishing in second and Ross Chastain in fifth. This occurred for the first time in over two years and just the third time in team history, according to Daniel Céspedes.

In the seven races at Las Vegas in the Next Gen era, Chastain has finished inside the top five in five of seven races, with his worst finishes being seventh and 12th. Chastain also has the lowest average finish at the track in the Next Gen Era (5.43).

Christopher Bell’s three-race win streak ended with a 12th-place finish at Las Vegas. However, Bell was still the highest-finishing Toyota driver, and it was also his fourth straight race as the top driver at Toyota.

Last week at Phoenix, Joey Logano became the first defending Cup Series champion failing to earn a top-10 finish in the first four races of the following season. With his 15th-place finish at Las Vegas, he has yet to finish inside the top 10 in the first five races of the 2025 season.

The 32 lead changes during the 2025 Pennzoil 400 are the most ever for a Cup Series race at Las Vegas.

Despite competing in only one race, Jimmie Johnson (34 points) still has more points than Cody Ware (24 points) has in five races.

GRID RANKING

 

For now, Atlanta, COTA and Phoenix race winner Christopher Bell continues to lead the Cup Series rating, followed by William Byron, Josh Berry, Tyler Reddick and Kyle Larson.

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, March 23. Coverage will begin at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.

GRID Network

GRID Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GridNetworkTV

GRID X: https://x.com/GridNetworkTV

GRID Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/gridnetworktv.bsky.social

GRID TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gridnetworktv

GRID Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/GridNetworkTV

GRID Facebook: https://facebook.com/GridNetworkTV

GRID Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gridnetworktv/

GRID YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GRIDNetworkTV