Van Gisbergen crashes while Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric win the Duels at Daytona
Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric have won the two Duels at Daytona. Cindric’s win came after crossing the finish line second, NASCAR giving him the win over Erik Jones because he was leading when a Caution period was called metres from the end of the race.
The caution was for a big crash involving Shane van Gisbergen, who was squeezed against the fence on the run to the chequered flag. Van Gisbergen officially finished 15th.
The first Duel was a slow starter, with yellow flags twice early in the race before Wallace won the drafting duel to the flag from William Byron, Ty Dillon (who tagged the wall on the closing lap), Ross Chastain, and Tyler Reddick.
The win for Wallace broke a two-year winless streak and left him as the driver in the Cup Series with the best finishing average at the track.
“I didn’t know whether to stop on the front stretch, where to go to victory lane,” Wallace said. “Two years hiatus, you lose memory a lot really quick.
“To finally get a Duel win, I hope it’s the right stepping stone for accomplishing Sunday. Better yet, I’m tired of going over to Blaney’s house and seeing his Duel win trophy, and I finally got one.
“Tyler got one last year. I was getting jealous. Now I got my own, and we’re good.
“All in all, it was a good night for our team. I thought it was pretty cool just seeing how well the 23 and the 45 worked together and moving to that top lane forward together the whole night. That was really, really special.”
The second Duel took a while to warm up to the bump and grind of the opening Duel, and it was perhaps fitting that the win to Cindric surprised most. Jones had even stopped on the straight to celebrate his win while NASCAR officials went through the footage before giving the win to Cindric, who was the second faster qualifier.
Behind Cindric and Jones, Chris Buescher, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano rounded out the top five.
Justin Allgaier on the inside, takes the honours among the open drivers in the first Duel at Daytona. Image Supplied.
Justin Allgaier and Corey LaJoie made the starting grid for the 500 by being the highest-placed open drivers in each race, joining Martin Truex Junior and Jimmie Johnson, who qualified yesterday, and Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, who was guaranteed a start before he crashed out of his Duel.
Allgaier, racing for JR Racing, co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr and Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, went on an emotional ride over the past two days. He missed qualifying yesterday by 8/1000ths of a second, and today, he needed to create a third line to pass fellow open drivers Truex Jnr and JJ Yeley.
Dale Earnhardt Junior celebrates with his team after Justin Allgaier won his way onto the 2025 Daytona 500 grid. Image Supplied.
The Earnhardts spoke later of their love for the track, which claimed their father’s life in the 2001 Daytona 500.
“I probably need a psychiatrist to describe it, but I’m not — you know, Daddy loved Daytona and loved winning here. He just loved to win any race here. He loved to add to that number, whatever it was, 36 wins,” Dale Jr said.
“Gosh, I loved coming here as a kid, but just a lot of great memories. Then, when he passed away, I had to make a decision. I had a career in front of me. I was coming back multiple times, and I had to figure out a way to be okay with it.
“I knew that it wasn’t the track that took him, and I knew that he, wherever he was, still felt the same about Daytona. So I’ve embraced it.
“Him losing his life in this property brought this property closer to me. Now, that doesn’t work the same for other people and tragedy, but for me, knowing I had to keep coming here, I made some peace with it embraced the track and loved it.
“Add on top of that, you know, I’ve loved the history of the sport and add on top of the fact that this is the cornerstone, this is the foundation of the sport between Darlington, here, and a few other tracks, this is really what helped us launch ourselves off of the beach and out of the dirt tracks, the little bull rings, and make us a genuine sport, and all of the historic moments that have happened here and getting to win here myself.
“I think that I was going to say at some point during this press conference that we should celebrate this track and this race. Where else do you go and barely make the field and cry tears of joy? Nowhere.
“There’s some relief, but this is incredible. I think that helps you measure the importance of the race and how big it is to me. Yeah, that’s kind of the way it is for me.
“It’s a special place. I don’t know. It’s cool.”
