Team Penske’s Kansas gains carry over to Las Vegas

NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 5, 2026

Team Penske gains

Team Penske left Las Vegas Motor Speedway with another clean result and a stronger case that its recent progress on intermediate tracks can hold up under pressure. All three Penske cars finished in the top 10 in Sunday’s South Point 400, a run that kept the team’s championship hopes alive and extended the momentum it built one week earlier at Kansas Speedway. That Kansas weekend mattered because it gave Penske clear signs of speed on 1.5-mile tracks this season, even as the team’s results on those tracks had been uneven at other points in the year. Las Vegas served as the next test, and Penske answered it with a performance that matched the rise it showed at Kansas. Austin Cindric finished second at Kansas, Ryan Blaney finished fifth after starting 25th and Joey Logano showed speed before a flat tire dropped him to 20th. Those results prompted questions about whether the Kansas run marked real progress. The Las Vegas finish pushed that question toward the positive side. Penske backed up the idea that its intermediate-track pace has moved in the right direction. The team entered the race encouraged by what Cindric had done at Kansas, and it left with even more evidence that the gains are carrying over. For a group that needed a strong response on another 1.5-mile track, Sunday delivered one.

Austin Cindric momentum

Austin Cindric’s recent stretch gave Penske the clearest sign that the team has something to build on. He finished second at Kansas, then qualified seventh at Las Vegas, a sequence that showed he could carry speed from one intermediate track to another. That Kansas result came at a time when Penske’s form on 1.5-mile tracks had been inconsistent. Joey Logano said Cindric’s finish showed that “the potential’s there” for Team Penske, and that view matched the way the group approached Las Vegas. Cindric’s qualifying run gave the team another piece of evidence that the speed could carry from Kansas to Las Vegas. It also fit with the broader theme of the weekend. Cindric’s work at Kansas and his start at Las Vegas helped frame the conversation around Penske’s improvement. The team was not chasing one isolated run. It was trying to prove that the Kansas showing pointed to something more durable on the kind of tracks that have mattered most in the middle of the schedule. Ryan Blaney backed that view too. He said he is not letting Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s recent history shape his expectations and noted that the track has been difficult for the No. 12 Team Penske car in recent years. He pointed to Kansas as proof that the team has made progress on 1.5-mile tracks, said the group has learned from that weekend and believes those gains can help at Las Vegas. Blaney also said there is limited time for major changes before another intermediate race at Charlotte.

Joey Logano pace

Joey Logano’s weekend helped complete the picture for Penske. He showed speed at Kansas before a flat tire dropped him to 20th, and that speed mattered because it came during the same stretch in which the team was trying to judge whether its intermediate-track form had improved for good. That earlier speed gave Penske reason to treat Las Vegas as a meaningful test. On Sunday, Logano opened the South Point 400 by finishing 12th in the first stage and missing stage points, but the larger result still favored the team. That consistency stood out after a season in which its 1.5-mile results had gone up and down. The Las Vegas showing did more than add a solid finish to the record. It gave Penske another data point that its recent pace can travel from Kansas to Las Vegas. That matters because the next stop at Charlotte comes quickly. For Penske, Sunday’s result was the kind that keeps the focus on progress rather than recovery. It also gave Logano, Blaney and Cindric a shared answer to a question that had followed the team out of Kansas, whether the speed was real. Las Vegas suggested it was.