Byron gets back to back Daytona 500 wins after last lap chaos

William Byron started the final lap ninth, but that did not stop him from pushing the #24 to unlikely back to back Daytona 500 victories.

It was a crazy ending to what was a crazy run home where three big incidents, led by the terrifying sight of Ryan Preece taking flight, brought the race into Overtime.

Whilst Byron took the white flag deep in the pack, Austin Cindric and Denny Hamlin were nose to tail at the front of the field.

They appeared to be fighting for victory, only to clash halfway up the back straight.

As all the leaders spun out, emerging from the tyre smoke in the lead was Byron, who led Tyler Reddick and returning guest Jimmie Johnson at 49 home in a crazy final lap.

Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen started promisingly, fighting around the top 10 in the opening stages, but ultimately finished a distant 33rd, eight laps down after his race was undone by a big crash at the start of Stage 2.

Byron is the 13th driver to win multiple Daytona 500s and first since Denny Hamlin in 2019-20 to go back to back as he further builds the #24 legend started by three-time winner Jeff Gordon.

“Obviously some good fortune but I just trusted my instinct on that last lap,” an understated and surprised Byron said in victory lane.

“I felt like they were going to screw on the bottom and I was honestly going to go in the third lane regardless because I was sixth coming onto the back.

“Obviously fortunate but I am really proud of this team. We had an amazing car all week, but had hard time fuel saving.

“This is crazy, I cannot believe that.

“We are so proud of it.”

It was a long wait for the 67th Daytona 500 to fire up, but eventually it was worth it as only 11 laps were possible before the rain arrived.

At the time of the stoppage Austin Cindric had edged his way into the lead ahead of Ty Dillon and pole sitter Chase Briscoe, who had led the most laps before the interruption.

Van Gisbergen made early ground and squeezed his way into the top 15. 

Fans had to wait for over four hours before racing resumed under the floodlights.

They were greeted with a long run of green flag racing with Logano dominating ahead of former teammate and fellow Ford driver Keselowski.

The entire stage almost ran all green, but ended under caution after a crash on Lap 63.

A hit from behind saw Denny Hamlin get out of shape on the inside lane and check up off the apron.

This set off a chain reaction that involved Zane Smith, Josh Berry and Austin Cindric.

Smith and Berry suffered major front end damage

Despite having looked ominous early, Logano’s hopes took a major blow when he suffered throttle body dramas and fell to the back of the pack at the start of the second stage.

With the #22 struggling to get going, the entire outside line stacked up behind which set off a chain reaction at Turn 2

The relentless nose to tail contact saw Ross Chastain fire hard into Helio Castroneves, while Briscoe, Jon Hunter Nemechek, Kyle Busch, Riley Herbst, Martin Truex Jr and Jimmie Johnson were also caught in the drama.

Whilst emerging unscathed from the crash, Logano spent a long time on pit road fixing the issue and fell to the back of the pack.

However, the #22 utilised the free pass and car pass to claw back to the front of the field by stage end.

With three lanes in operation, Cindric, Preece and Bowman wrestled for the lead across the second stage once there was an extended green flag run and it was the #60 RFK Mustang that got its nose ahead by the halfway mark.

As the pack sprinted towards the completion of the second stage, Cindric took control and Blaney made it a Penske 1-2 with an impressive slingshot past Elliott with the side draft coming out of Turn 2.

Incredibly Logano completed his charge all the way to the top six come the final 10 laps of the stage.

The Penske power was on full display at the end of Stage 2 with Cindric and Blaney leading the pack side by side towards the chequered flag.

A push from Elliott ended up allowing Blaney to snatch it.

With intensity rising at the start of the final stage, Blaney had company with Wallace making a challenge up high.

The #12 Ford and #23 Toyota spent lap after lap side by side before Byron made a challenge down low to make it three wide with 50 to go.

As the race continued at a hot pace, a predicament of when to make the final fuel stops surfaced.

But this was soon not an issue as with 38 laps to go the yellows returned due to debris, which provided the field a perfect window to complete their final fuel stops. 

At the restart Wallace and Cindric resumed their battle and the Toyota won convincingly with a nice push from Byron.

However, pushing Penske teammates soon prevailed on the low line with Cindric and Blaney taking charge.

It was not until Lap 185 where the high lane led by La Joie finally fought back and it did not take long for chaos to unfold.

Coming out of Turn 2, Stenhouse cut across Logano, which sent the #47 spinning into third placed Blaney below.

With the clash taking place at the very front of the pack, many had nowhere to go with Logano going head on into the outside wall, while 4 and Elliott suffered heavy damage.

As they pin-balled up high, Kyle Busch, who was sixth, got punted to the infield.

Having been at the source of the incident, Logano was one of the most deeply impacted with heavy right front damage and he struggled to make it back to the pits.

Racing resumed with just eight laps to go and whilst La Joie initially led up high, Penske power once again prevailed with Cindric taking charge.

But halfway up the back straight on Lap 193 Toyota teammates Hamlin and Bell teamed up to snatch the lead up high.

Hamlin then swooped back down to lead both the race and the bottom train ahead of Cindric.

Suddenly it was a Joe Gibbs Racing formation at the front of the field with Bell and Hamlin side by side with only five laps to go.

Although the Toyotas had track position it was clear the #20 was not comfortable leading the high lane with Bell bouncing around.

Eventually the pressure from Cole Custer became too much and the latter sent Bell hard head on into the back straight fence.

The unlucky car that took the rebound from the bruised Bell was Preece, who then took off.

The front of the #60 Mustang then ran airborne alongside Jones before the RFK Racing machine finally flipped over.

For the second time in as many Daytona races Preece found himself tumbling and landing heavily on his roof.

By the time the #60 was back the right way up, it went rearwards into the outside wall in another sickening impact before finally coming to rest at Turn 3 where roof flaps eventually deployed.

In addition to Preece, Larson, Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace were also involved.

Preece was thankful to simply walk away.

“When the car took off like that and it got real quiet all I thought about was my daughter so I am lucky to walk away, but we are getting really close to someone not being able to,” Preece said.

“I am very grateful.

“That sucks. This thing was fast, so it is frustrating when you end your day like this.”

This sent the race into Overtime with Hamlin and CIndric side by side.

The #11 got the better restart but it did not work as Custer gave Cindric a push to the lead through Turn 2.

As they took the white flag Cindric made a bold move to shut down Hamlin down low and it worked just, but it saw Riley Herbst fire to the infield, but he somehow saved it.

The titanic tussle for the lead carried on down the back straight, but it all exploded amid the desperation for Daytona 500 glory.

The top four of Cindric, Hamlin, Custer and Briscoe all came together.

The contact sent Hamlin spinning from the lead across the track, bringing Custer with him and into Bowman up high with many others left with no one to go.

The only members of the top 10 to sneak clear of the chaos in the high lane were Byron and Reddick, who drove to glory.

“I thought we were in a great spot a number of times in the final laps but we didn’t have the caution on the first front straight away spin and got such a run on Cindric I could control which side I wanted to pass him on,” Hamlin said.

“We pulled away from the pack slightly and 41 had the run and I chose not to block him because you need to live to make it off turn 4 and we did not

I was pushing the #2 down and giving the #41 the space to not stop his run and thought he steered left to crowd it.

“I understand we were all going for it, but in this situations you need to get off four.”

The field has a week to recover before fronting up at Atlanta.

2025 Daytona 500 results

1. No. 24 William Byron
2. No. 45 Tyler Reddick
3. No. 84 Jimmie Johnson
4. No. 19 Chase Briscoe
5. No. 42 John Hunter Nemechek
6. No. 48 Alex Bowman
7. No. 12 Ryan Blaney
8. No. 2 Austin Cindric
9. No. 40 Justin allgaier
10. No. 17 Chris Buescher
11. No. 71 Michael McDowell
12. No. 43 Erik Jones
13. No. 99 Daniel Suarez
14. No. 10 Ty Dillon
15. No. 9 Chase Elliott
16. No. 54 Ty Gibbs
17. No. 35 Riley Herbst
18. No. 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
19. No. 7 Justin Haley
20. No. 5 Kyle Larson
21. No. 41 Cole Custer
22. No. 01 Corey LaJoie
23. No. 3 Austin Dillon
24. No. 11 Denny Hamlin
25. No. 51 Cody Ware
26. No. 6 Brad Keselowski
27. No. 34 Todd Gilliland
28. No. 4 Noah Gragson
29. No. 23 Bubba Wallace
30. No. 77 Carson Hocevar
31. No. 20 Christopher Bell
32. No. 60 Ryan Preece
33. No. 88 Shane van Gisbergen
34. No. 8 Kyle Busch
35. No. 22 Joey Logano
36. No. 38 Zane Smith
37. No. 21 Josh Berry
38. No. 56 Martin Truex Jr.
39. No. 91 Helio Castroneves
40. No. 1 Ross Chastain
41. No. 16 A.J. Allmendinger

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