Daytona 500: William Byron wins his second straight Daytona 500 after last-lap crash

William Byron received his second straight Daytona 500 after a last-lap wreck took out race chief Denny Hamlin on the backstretch.

Byron took over the lead when Hamlin went spinning after taking the lead from Austin Cindric on the backstretch on the ultimate lap of a green-white-checker restart.

Byron was ninth when the white flag flew and was on the highest aspect of the monitor. He estimated that he was sixth on the backstretch after shifting to the center and shuffling Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman out of line. As Hamlin and others crashed, Byron escaped previous the wreck close to the wall unscathed and beat Tyler Reddick to the end.

“Clearly some luck however simply trusted my intuition on the final lap there,” Byron stated after getting out of his automotive. “I felt like they had been getting squirrely on the underside and simply tried to — I used to be truthfully going to go third lane regardless as a result of I used to be most likely sixth coming down the again.”

NASCAR inexplicably did not throw a warning on the ultimate lap. The day earlier than within the Xfinity Sequence race, race management rightly threw the warning on the final lap due to a tough crash within the tri-oval. A warning name would not have modified the result of the race — Byron would have been forward when NASCAR ought to have thrown the warning — however the inconsistency was jarring to anybody watching the races on each days.

The Daytona 500 win is the tenth for Hendrick Motorsports as Byron received the staff’s ninth in 2024. The victory breaks a tie with Petty Enterprises for essentially the most Daytona 500 wins by a single staff.

The race formally went 203 laps and three laps previous its scheduled distance.

Hamlin was searching for his fourth Daytona 500 win. A victory would have tied him with Cale Yarborough for the second-most Daytona 500 wins ever behind Richard Petty’s seven.

“We did not have the cauton on the primary entrance straightaway spin,” Hamlin stated of Riley Herbst’s slide by the grass. “And I used to be like ‘nicely that is a second lease on life to attempt to get [Austin Cindric].’ So I measured up [Cindric], received a run on him and stayed with him sufficient that I may sort of management which aspect I needed to move him on. After which we had pulled away from the pack barely so I knew a run was going to return.”

“[Custer] had the run. I selected to not block him, like, these races you have to reside to make it off of Flip 4 and we simply did not. I assumed that [Custer] got here down and I am pushing [Cindric] down as little as I can, giving [Custer] all the house and never stopping his run however I assumed he — not hung a left however steered left and making an attempt to crowd it. And I perceive everybody’s making an attempt to go for it and he is going for it. All of us are. However in these situatoons, Itold him in these conditions, we gotta get off of 4 then we are able to do that. However we simply by no means made it.”

The end was arrange by a crash with lower than 5 laps to go when Christopher Bell received turned by Cole Custer when Bell was alongside his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin for the lead. Bell went into the wall and Preece’s automotive catapulted off Bell’s automotive and flipped over earlier than backing into the wall.

A crash with 15 laps to go took out a bunch of contenders together with Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch. Logano had a run on 2023 Daytona 500 champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Stenhouse moved to dam Logano’s momentum. He continued to take action as Logano tried to move him in the midst of a three-wide scenario, and Stenhouse continued to dam.

That didn’t work out nicely.

Cindric led a race-high 59 laps whereas his Staff Penske teammate Logano led 43. Blaney led 23 as Penske dominated the race. However not one of the staff’s three drivers received the win.

Logano might need had the quickest automotive all through the race. He even went a lap down through the second stage after his engine went amiss and brought about a pileup on a restart. After his crew modified out the engine’s ECU, they discovered {that a} piece of particles had been sucked into the engine. As soon as the particles was eliminated, Logano’s automotive was again at full velocity and he labored his approach again by the sector.

The race completed earlier than 10 p.m. ET after an extended rain delay shortly after the inexperienced flag. The race was moved up an hour to 2:11 p.m. ET due to the forecast and eight laps below inexperienced had been accomplished earlier than rain hit the speedway. The race lastly resumed after 6 p.m. ET and went the remainder of the way in which with out some other delay.

It was the fourth time in six years that the Daytona 500 had been paused by rain. In 2020 and 2024 the race ended on Monday and the 2021 race ended even later than Sunday evening’s race.