William Byron Captures His Second Consecutive Daytona 500

Daytona, FL (February 16th, 2025)

With the 67^th running of the Daytona 500 heading into overtime, it was looking like it would be a duel to the line between three time winner Denny Hamlin and 2022 winner Austin Cindric. As the field took the white flag Cole Custer muscled his way to the front to make a three wide field. As Hamlin made his move on Cindric, there was contact between Hamlin and Custer. The ensuing accident took out Hamlin and multiple drivers, as well as slowing Cindric down.

Driving through the wreckage on the backstraight of the famed superspeedway unscathed was last year’s winner William Byron. With NASCAR deciding to keep the green flag out, this allowed Byron to rocket up from ninth place to grab the lead coming into turns three and four which he would never relinquish. As he crossed the line grabbing the checkered flag, William Byron was now officially a two time winner as well as the first driver since Denny Hamlin to win the race in consecutive years.

Coming in second was Tyler Reddick. Third place belonged to the seven time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. As for pole winner Chase Briscoe, he managed to get fourth place.

With the threat of weather looming ominously NASCAR was trying to beat the weather by starting the race an hour earlier. In addition, a special guest made an appearance, President Donald Trump. As the race finally got underway to the delight of the sold out crowd, the cheers would be short lived. On lap ten the red flag came out as the threatening rain finally arrived.

A little over three hours later, the rain stopped and the track crew had everything dried out so the race was back on. The field took to the track and were under the caution flag for another twelve laps when the rain made a return bringing out yet another red flag. This would be a much shorter respite, lasting only twenty minutes. Finally the race would be able to resume without any further weather interruptions.

With the race finally back on Joey Logano seemed to have the dominant car. As the first stage was nearing the end the inevitable finally happened, the first big crash of the race happened on lap sixty three. Zane Smith made contact with Denny Hamlin and spun him out. Smith then slid up the track and into Josh Berry’s Ford. Hamlin was able to get back going without losing a lap. But Smith had to head back to the garage to get his car repaired. The first stage would end under a caution with Logano winning it.

When the second stage got underway, on the restart on lap seventy one, engine problems caused Logano to stack up the top lane which caused yet another accident. This one took Martin Truex Jr., Helio Castroneves, and Ross Chastain out of the race. Much of the second stage was dominated by Austin Cindric. Much of the race high fifty nine laps that he led came from this stage. As strong as he looked through the second stage he wasn’t able to capitalize on it and the stage win went to Ryan Blaney.

The third and final stage saw Denny Hamlin crawl back into contention from his earlier incident. Joey Logano also recovered from his engine issues and was back up front challenging for the win. Both Hamlin and Logano Took turns at the front of the field. But on lap 186 a big wreck changed the complexion of the race. Joey Logano was trying to work his way to the front, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was having none of it and was blocking as hard as he could. As Logano was going for a hole Stenhouse went to block him and the ensuing contact caused an accident that ruined any chance of victory for Logano, Blaney, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, and Noah Gragson.

With four laps to go in the race, one of the scariest incidents of recent memory happened when Cole Custer bumped Christopher Bell which turned him hard into the outside wall. Bell bounced off the SAFER barrier and made contact with Ryan Preece’s No. 60 Ford. This caused Preece’s car to go airborne and landed on its roof before finishing upright.

After the race was over Byron went on to say “Yeah, obviously some good fortune, but just trusted my instincts on the last lap there. I felt like they were getting squirrelly on the bottom, and I was honestly going to go third (top) lane regardless because I was probably sixth coming down the back. Just obviously fortunate that it worked out in our favor. But just really proud of this team. Worked super hard all week and had an amazing car. Just had a really hard time with the fuel-saving and kind of staying towards the front. Crazy. I can’t honestly believe that. But we’re here. So proud of it.”

NASCAR Cup Series Race – DAYTONA 500

Daytona International Speedway

Daytona Beach, Florida

Sunday, February 16, 2025

(5) William Byron, Chevrolet, 201.
(11) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 201.
(40) Jimmie Johnson, Toyota, 201.
(1) Chase Briscoe, Toyota, 201.
(18) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 201.
(38) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 201.
(16) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 201.
(2) Austin Cindric, Ford, 201.
(19) Justin Allgaier(i), Chevrolet, 201.
(6) Chris Buescher, Ford, 201.
(25) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 201.
(4) Erik Jones, Toyota, 201.
(36) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 201.
(7) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 201.
(17) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 201.
(23) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, 201.
(24) Riley Herbst #, Toyota, 201.
(31) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 201.
(35) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 201.
(22) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 201.
(30) Cole Custer, Ford, 201.
(12) Corey LaJoie, Ford, 201.
(15) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 201.
(8) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 201.
(28) Cody Ware, Ford, Accident, 200.
(34) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 200.
(14) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 199.
(32) Noah Gragson, Ford, 198.
(3) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, Accident, 197.
(33) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, Fuel Pressure, 196.
(20) Christopher Bell, Toyota, Accident, 195.
(27) Ryan Preece, Ford, Accident, 195.
(26) Shane Van Gisbergen #, Chevrolet, 193.
(21) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, Accident, 186.
(10) Joey Logano, Ford, Accident, 185.
(37) Zane Smith, Ford, Accident, 108.
(29) Josh Berry, Ford, Accident, 105.
(39) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, Accident, 71.
(41) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, Accident, 70.
(9) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, Accident, 70.
(13) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, Engine, 42.

Average Speed of Race Winner: 129.159 mph.

Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 53 Mins, 26 Secs. Margin of Victory: .113 Seconds.

Caution Flags: 8 for 47 laps.

Lead Changes: 56 among 15 drivers.

Lap Leaders: C. Briscoe 1-4;T. Dillon 5-7;W. Byron 8-10;A. Cindric 11;W. Byron 12-15;M. McDowell 16-17;R. Blaney 18-21;J. Logano 22-30;W. Byron 31;*. LaJoie 32-34;J. Logano 35-39;C. Elliott 40-41;J. Logano 42-70;A. Bowman 71-74;R. Blaney 75-76;A. Cindric 77-78;R. Preece 79;N. Gragson 80;A. Cindric 81-89;M. McDowell 90;A. Cindric 91-93;M. McDowell 94;N. Gragson 95;A. Cindric 96;R. Preece 97-101;A. Bowman 102-105;A. Cindric 106-115;A. Bowman 116;A. Cindric 117-122;A. Bowman 123;A. Cindric 124;A. Bowman 125;A. Cindric 126-129;R. Blaney 130-132;C. Hocevar 133;R. Blaney 134-138;B. Wallace 139-141;R. Blaney 142;B. Wallace 143-145;R. Blaney 146-148;B. Wallace 149-152;R. Blaney 153-154;B. Wallace 155-156;R. Blaney 157;B. Wallace 158;W. Byron 159;R. Blaney 160;B. Wallace 161-163;A. Cindric 164;B. Wallace 165-166;A. Cindric 167-185;*. LaJoie 186-192;A. Cindric 193;D. Hamlin 194-199;A. Cindric 200;W. Byron 201;R. Blaney 202.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Austin Cindric 13 times for 59 laps; Joey Logano 3 times for 43 laps; Ryan Blaney 10 times for 23 laps; Bubba Wallace 7 times for 18 laps; Alex Bowman 5 times for 11 laps; William Byron 5 times for 10 laps; * Corey LaJoie 2 times for 10 laps; Ryan Preece 2 times for 6 laps; Denny Hamlin 1 time for 6 laps; Michael McDowell 3 times for 4 laps; Chase Briscoe 1 time for 4 laps; Ty Dillon 1 time for 3 laps; Noah Gragson 2 times for 2 laps; Chase Elliott 1 time for 2 laps; Carson Hocevar 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 22,6,12,47,20,99,48,45,43,24

Stage #2 Top Ten: 12,2,9,48,34,17,43,22,23,8

Daytona International Speedway: