DAYTONA Beach, Fla. — In a spectacular finish that saw him go from ninth to first on the final lap, William Byron won the 67th annual Daytona 500 after capitalizing on a crash between Denny Hamlin and Austin Cindric with half a lap to go. After winning the 2024 Daytona 500, Byron becomes the fifth driver in history to win back-to-back Daytona 500s, joining Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Sterling Marlin and Hamlin.

Running in the middle of the lead pack on the final lap, Byron was effectively a bystander for the first half of the final lap as Austin Cindric tried to find a way to hold off a run by Hamlin. Hamlin cut to Cindric’s outside to set off a series of sudden shuffles behind him, and then it happened: An errant bump draft led to Hamlin, Cindric, Cole Custer and more all crashing down the backstretch as the seas parted for Byron to drive through.

Byron then had to survive the final half a lap without drafting help, holding on just long enough to hold off Tyler Reddick to get back to the checkered flag and score the win in one of the wildest finishes in Daytona 500 history.

Daytona 500 unofficial results

1. #24 – William Byron
2. #45 – Tyler Reddick
3. #84 – Jimmie Johnson
4. #19 – Chase Briscoe
5. #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
6. #48 – Alex Bowman
7. #12 – Ryan Blaney
8. #2 – Austin Cindric
9. #40 – Justin Allgaier
10. #17 – Chris Buescher

One year ago, Byron was fortunate enough to be out in front at the white flag when Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric went for a slide through the infield grass, bringing out the caution to end the race with Byron just ahead of teammate Alex Bowman. This time around, having to come out from through the carnage as it unfolded, Byron chalked his victory up to good fortune and trusting his instinct on the final lap.

“I felt like they were getting squirrely on the bottom,” Byron told Fox Sports. “I was honestly going to go to the third lane regardless … Obviously fortunate that it worked out in our favor. But just really proud of this team, worked super hard all week. Had an amazing car, just had a really hard time with the fuel savings and kind of staying towards the front.

“Crazy. Yeah, I mean, I can’t honestly believe that. But we’re here, so I’m proud of it.”

Long before it finished, the Daytona 500 started with much fanfare as President Donald Trump attended the race for the first time since 2020, leading the field aboard “The Beast” during pace laps in a presidential procession before giving way to polesitter Chase Briscoe. However, it occurred under threatening skies, and the race got only 11 laps in before a passing storm soaked the Daytona International Speedway, bringing out the red flag and prompting a rain delay of a little over three hours that pushed the race to primetime.

Once the race did get underway, it became largely a battle of the field versus the Team Penske cars, which proved to be the class of the field. Cindric, combined with teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, combined to lead 125 of an eventual 202 laps, and they were set to perhaps battle it out amongst themselves until Logano — who had overcome debris in his throttle body robbing his car of power and costing him a lap — triggered a multi-car crash on the back straightaway with 14 laps to go after getting squeezed between Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Following the restart, it then looked as though the race would be decided between Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell, until Bell got turned into the wall and into traffic to trigger the most spectacular wreck of the race. After hitting Bell, the front end of Ryan Preece’s car was launched into the air, sending his No. 60 Ford flipping over and up the Turn 3 banking before landing on its wheels — ironically, in almost the same part of the racetrack where he had an extremely violent rollover accident in August 2023, and one that prompted NASCAR to pave that section of the Daytona backstretch to reduce the chances of a car going airborne.

After yet another harrowing crash in a superspeedway race — he was also involved in a violent incident with Kyle Larson at Talladega in the spring of 2023 — Preece was frank in his feelings on superspeedway racing and whether NASCAR’s current product on its biggest and fastest tracks is truly safe.

“I don’t know if it’s the diffuser or what that makes these cars like a sheet of plywood when you walk out on a windy day, but when the car took off like that and it got real quiet, all I thought about was my daughter,” Preece told Fox Sports. “So I’m lucky to walk away. But we’re getting really close to somebody not being able to.”

In all, Byron’s second consecutive Daytona 500 victory was the 10th in team history for Hendrick Motorsports, five of which have now come via the organization’s famed No. 24 Chevrolet. Prior to Byron’s back-to-back victories, NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon piloted the No. 24 to Daytona 500 victories in 1997, 1999 and 2005.

Race results rundown

• What a way to show you’ve still got it. In a car designed by Shaquille O’Neal calling back to his uniform on the Orlando Magic, seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson piloted his No. 84 Toyota to a third-place finish in his first of two planned races this season. It not only marks Johnson’s best finish by far since retiring from full-time racing at the end of the 2020 season, but it’s also his seventh top five in his Daytona 500 career.
• There’s one over dear old dad. Not only did John Hunter Nemechek earn his best career finish by coming across the line in fifth, but he also set a new high mark for the Nemechek family in the Daytona 500. His father, longtime NASCAR fixture Joe Nemechek, had a best Daytona 500 finish of sixth back in 2004.
• Speedweeks 2025 marked a new chapter in the legacy of the Earnhardt family at Daytona, as reigning Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier put JR Motorsports in the field for their first Cup race. Allgaier ended up ninth at the finish line, earning the second top 10 of his Cup career, most of which was contained to a brief stint as a full-time Cup driver in 2014 and 2015.
• After nearly winning his Duel qualifying race and running up front early, Ty Dillon’s race looked like it may have been spoiled when he had to pit just after a restart with a loose wheel, falling laps down in the process. But thanks to the series of late race incidents, Dillon was able to get back on the lead lap and drive back through the field to begin his return to full-time Cup with Kaulig Racing with a 14th-place finish.
• Corey LaJoie nearly earned a monumental upset, willing his way to the lead with nearly 10 laps to go and leading 10 laps total and putting himself in a position to win on the final lap before finishing 22nd after being collected in the wreck on the backstretch. His Rick Ware Racing teammate, Cody Ware, was almost through the wreck on the final lap only to get clipped at the last moment, sending him from another potential top 10 at Daytona to a 25th-place finish — an unfortunate turn of events for Rick Ware’s team on both fronts.
• 2024 Cup Rookie of the Year Carson Hocevar became the star of the Daytona 500’s rain delay, as he achieved social media stardom by getting on the iRacing rig in his hauler and streaming his playtime on his Twitch channel. Once he was back in his real race car, things didn’t go as well: Hocevar suffered from fuel pressure issues and wound up finishing 30th.
• Kyle Busch was running third late in the Daytona 500 with a chance to finally win in his 20th try, a two-decade long struggle that offered shades of Dale Earnhardt’s efforts to win this race before finally scoring the victory in his 20th attempt in 1998. It was not to be: Busch ended up getting swept up in the pileup with 14 laps to go, relegating him to 34th and extending his Daytona 500 record to 0 for 20. His compatriots in longtime Daytona 500 frustration despite championship Cup careers otherwise, Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr., were also collected in crashes and finished 26th and 38th, respectively.
• In a much anticipated NASCAR debut many years in the making, four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves took to the high banks of Daytona for the very first time behind the wheel of the No. 91 for Trackhouse Racing. Unfortunately, the impression he left would end up being on the wall. After getting crashed both in his Duel race and in the ARCA Menards Series race on Saturday, Castroneves was collected in a crash on a Lap 70 restart and was left with a 39th-place finish for his troubles.

Next Race

With the sport’s biggest race now in the history books, NASCAR will get its regular season underway in earnest with a trip to Atlanta Motor Speedway next week for the Ambetter Health 400 next Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on Fox.