diff --git a/.buildkite/intel_jobs/misc_intel.yaml b/.buildkite/intel_jobs/misc_intel.yaml
index 752870abe36b..5431f1d5163f 100644
--- a/.buildkite/intel_jobs/misc_intel.yaml
+++ b/.buildkite/intel_jobs/misc_intel.yaml
@@ -71,7 +71,8 @@ steps:
       export VLLM_WORKER_MULTIPROC_METHOD=spawn &&
       cd tests &&
       pytest -v -s v1/logits_processors --ignore=v1/logits_processors/test_custom_online.py --ignore=v1/logits_processors/test_custom_offline.py &&
-      pytest -v -s v1/test_oracle.py v1/test_request.py v1/test_outputs.py &&
+      pytest -v -s v1/test_oracle.py v1/test_request.py &&
+      pytest -v -s v1/test_outputs.py &&
       pytest -v -s v1/sample'
   retry:
     automatic:
diff --git a/.buildkite/scripts/hardware_ci/run-intel-test.sh b/.buildkite/scripts/hardware_ci/run-intel-test.sh
index 0c463b0eb005..1dc3537e9280 100755
--- a/.buildkite/scripts/hardware_ci/run-intel-test.sh
+++ b/.buildkite/scripts/hardware_ci/run-intel-test.sh
@@ -378,7 +378,32 @@ export HF_TOKEN ZE_AFFINITY_MASK VLLM_DISABLE_COMPILE_CACHE
     -e CMDS \
     --name "${container_name}" \
     "${IMAGE}" \
-    bash -c 'set -e; echo "ZE_AFFINITY_MASK is ${ZE_AFFINITY_MASK:-}"; eval "$CMDS"' \
+    bash -c 'set -e
+echo "ZE_AFFINITY_MASK is ${ZE_AFFINITY_MASK:-}"
+if [[ -n "${PYTEST_ADDOPTS:-}" ]]; then
+  # Tolerate exit 5 only when pytest-shard reports 0 items for this shard while the pre-shard selection (collected minus deselected) was non-empty; 
+  # -k/-m filters that deselect everything still fail normally.
+  pytest() {
+    local ec=0 log collected deselected shard_count selected
+    log="$(mktemp)"
+    command pytest "$@" 2>&1 | tee "$log"
+    ec=${PIPESTATUS[0]}
+    if [[ $ec -eq 5 ]]; then
+      collected=$(grep -oE "collected [0-9]+ item" "$log" | grep -oE "[0-9]+" | tail -1)
+      deselected=$(grep -oE "[0-9]+ deselected" "$log" | grep -oE "[0-9]+" | tail -1)
+      shard_count=$(grep -oE "Running [0-9]+ items? in this shard" "$log" | grep -oE "[0-9]+" | tail -1)
+      selected=$(( ${collected:-0} - ${deselected:-0} ))
+      if [[ "${shard_count:-}" == "0" && $selected -gt 0 ]]; then
+        echo "pytest exited with status 5 but ${selected} item(s) were selected (0 assigned to this shard); treating as success."
+        rm -f "$log"
+        return 0
+      fi
+    fi
+    rm -f "$log"
+    return $ec
+  }
+fi
+eval "$CMDS"' \
     >/dev/null
 } 9>/tmp/docker-pull.lock