Sunday, March 3, 2019

Kevin Harvick finishes fourth in Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas

Kevin Harvick was 5/1 to win at Las Vegas. 
Date: March 3, 2019
Event: Las Vegas 400 (Round 3 of 36)
Series: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Las Vegas Motor Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
Format: 267 laps, broken into three stages (80 laps/80 laps/107 laps)
Start/Finish: 1st/4th (Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
Point Standing: 2nd (131 points, 2 out of first)

Race Winner: Joey Logano of Team Penske (Ford)
Stage 1 Winner: Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford)
Stage 2 Winner: Joey Logano of Team Penske (Ford)

Stage 1 Recap (Laps 1-80):
● Started first, finished first and collected 10 bonus points and a playoff point.
● Led early on, but Harvick said his No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang was a bit loose.
● On lap 45, Harvick had a four-second lead but pitted for four tires and fuel.
● Harvick beat Kyle Busch by 4.5 seconds to win Stage 1.

Stage 2 Recap (Laps 81-160):
● Started third, finished second and collected nine bonus points.
● Harvick pitted on lap 83 for four tires, fuel and a tire pressure adjustment. He had a bit of trouble getting out of the pit box and restarted third.
● On lap 125, Harvick pitted for four tires and fuel.

Stage 3 Recap (Laps 161-267):
● Started third, finished fourth.
● Harvick pitted under caution on lap 163 for four tires and fuel.
● On lap 215, while in second place, Harvick pitted for four tires, fuel and a chassis adjustment.
● Late in the race Harvick’s car was just too tight, but he finished a solid fourth.

Notes:
●  Harvick earned his second top-five finish of the season and his sixth top-five in 20 career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts at Las Vegas.  
●  Harvick won Stage 1 to earn 10 bonus points and one playoff point and finished second in Stage 2 to earn an additional nine bonus points.
●  Harvick led three times for a race-high 88 laps to increase his laps-led total at Las Vegas to 540.
●  Joey Logano won the Las Vegas 400 to score his 22nd career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his first at Las Vegas. His margin of victory over second-place Brad Keselowski was .236 of a second.
●  There were two caution periods for a total of 12 laps.
●  Only 18 of the 38 drivers in the Las Vegas 400 finished on the lead lap.

Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
“Qualifying paid off for us, and early in the race we were able to lead a lot of laps. As the race went on, we just kept getting tighter and tighter. That’s two weeks in a row that our car has fallen off a little bit, and we’ve have a tough time adjusting to that. We definitely have to do some work, but they’ve done a great job on our Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang. The last two weeks we’ve been in right field at the start of practice, and they just keep scrambling and taking big swings at it to get us close. Hopefully, we can get that figured out and get a little closer at the start of practice and get into a rhythm.”

Next Up:
The next event on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the TicketGuardian 500k on Sunday, March 10 at ISM Raceway near Phoenix. The race starts at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its prerace show at 3 p.m.

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