If 2023 was a breakthrough year for William Byron, 2024 could prove to be even bigger.
Byron, who led all NASCAR Cup Series drivers with six wins last season, scored the biggest triumph of his career Monday evening, winning the 66th annual Daytona 500 to kick off the 2024 season.
Byron took the white flag at Daytona International Speedway in his No. 24 Chevrolet seconds before a caution flag flew because of a last-lap crash. The 26-year-old edged his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman for the checkered flag, NASCAR officials ruled, after reviewing the sequence of events.
"Just extremely blessed and thankful for all the opportunities, now just want to keep it going," Byron said after exiting his car. "We have a lot to prove this year, and this is a good start obviously. Daytona 500, it’s freaking awesome!"
The one-two finish made a memorable day even more special for team owner Rick Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman, Jeff Gordon, who famously drove the No. 24 Hendrick Chevrolet to three Daytona 500 wins and four NASCAR Cup Series championships.
Monday marked the 40th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports' first race, and Byron’s win gave the team owner a record-tying nine Daytona 500 victories. Byron became the sixth different driver to win the Daytona 500 for Hendrick Motorsports and the first in nine years.
Monday's win marked Byron's 11th Cup Series victory since 2018. The Charlotte, North Carolina native made it to the NASCAR championship race in 2023, finishing fourth in the race and third in the final standings behind champion Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson, who won the 2021 title as a Hendrick driver.
Now Byron will seek to join Larson and 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott, and bring another season title to NASCAR's most successful owner 35 races from now.
It was a particularly rough ending for Team Penske and Ford, which had multiple Daytona 500 contenders taken out in two late crashes. The first one, with eight laps remaining, wiped out pole-sitter and 2015 winner Joey Logano and Blaney, among others, in a massive 18-car crash. The final crash took out 2022 Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric, who was in position to win again on the penultimate lap before a wreck ended his and Penske's hopes for a victory lane celebration.
"It’s just a really unfortunate end. We had a shot to win the Daytona 500," Cindric said. "We were really in great position with the outside lane breaking up and kind of one-on-one with the 24 with the whole pack behind, so you can’t really ask for anything else other than that out of myself and the team. It just sucks a little bit.”
Cindric finished 22nd, Blaney 30th and Logano 32nd. Noah Gragson, driving the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10, had the best finish for For in nignth. Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell came home third to lead the Toyota drivers.
“Honestly, we got really fortunate – with those two wrecks, you know," Bell said. "Being on the bottom lane, I was able to squeeze by that last wreck. We had an awesome Interstate Batteries DEWALT Camry. ... When we had track position, we were fast."
Continue below the photo gallery to read a recap and play-by-play of Monday's race.
After reviewing the finishing order following the last-lap crash between Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric, NASCAR revealed the final results of the 2024 Daytona 500, which saw a handful of less-heralded drivers finish in the top 10:
Click here for the full results from the 2024 Daytona 500.
William Byron won the 66th annual Daytona 500 Monday at Daytona International Speedway after NASCAR's premier race was delayed one day by rain.
Byron edged Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman as a crash broke out just as Byron took the white flag for the final lap. Officials immediately threw a caution flag, and the checkered flag followed, giving Byron his first Daytona 500 win.
After a massive crash shook up the race with eight laps remaining, the race restarted with just four laps left with Byron and Ross Chastain leading two large packs. Near the end of the penultimate lap, Chastain tried to squeeze in front of 2022 Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric to retake the lead on the inside lane, but Chastain's No. 1 Chevrolet collided Cindric's No. 2 Ford, igniting a crash and bringing out the final caution as the final lap began.
The "Big One" broke out at Daytona International Speedway with eight laps remaining in the 2024 Daytona 500.
Alex Bowman gave a hard shove to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron to push the middle pack forward, but Byron's No. 24 Chevrolet got loose, wiggled and then slammed into Brad Keselowski's No. 6 Ford, who was leading the inside lane. That contact near the front of the field triggered a massive crash that collected a 18 f cars including some of the favorites.
Among the cars taken out of the race in the crash: 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin pole-sitter Joey Logano, the 2015 Daytona champ, and 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson.
"It's speedway racing. It's a lot of fun until it sucks," Logano said after being checked and released from the infield care center along with Blaney, his Team Penske teammate.
Last year's winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also got collected, along with Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe, Chris Buescher, Martin Truex Jr., Daniel Hemric, Todd Gilliland, Ryan Preece, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, Anthony Alfredo and Daniel Suarez
Officials threw the red flag on Lap 192, halting the race as the mangled cars were removed from the track.
Cars came down pit road for their final fuel stops with 20 laps remaining in Monday's race. Most of the drivers pitted with other cars from the same manufacturer.
Pit stops finished with 18 laps to go with Ross Chastain and Joey Logano upfront.
Pole sitter Joey Logano assumed the lead on Lap 163 of 200 and has maintained it with final pit stops for fuel approaching. David Ragan, driving a one-off car for RFK Racing, and Brad Keselowski, co-owner of RFK, also moved to the front of the field, following Logano in the bottom lane. Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch paced the top lane with less than 30 laps remaining.
Former teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch battled for the lead midway through the third and final segment of the 2024 Daytona 500. Busch was a longtime teammate of Hamlin with Joe Gibbs Racing before moving to Richard Childress Racing last season.
Hamlin has won three Daytona 500, the most among active drivers. Busch has won two NASCAR Cup Series championships but has never taken the checkered flag at "The Great American Race."
Austin Cindric and Bubba Wallace led two competing packs as Stage 3 began in the Daytona 500 with less than 70 laps to go.
The cars then went three-wide a few laps later with AJ Allmendinger, Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick taking over the lead of the three packs.
Ryan Blaney won the second stage of the Daytona 500 after a power move on the closing lap. The reigning series champion dropped down to the bottom lane below his Penske teammate Austin Cindric and surged past him to take the lead and the checkered flag for Stage 2. Cindric, who won the 2022 Daytona 500, moved up in front of Kyle Busch on the outside lane to avoid falling back and held on to finish second, with Daniel Suarez taking third and Busch fourth.
Here are the top-10 finishers of Stage (all will receive Stage points, with 10 points to the winner and one point to the 10th-place finisher:
Kyle Busch takes the lead from Todd Gilliland on Lap 93 of 200, bringing Bubba Wallace with him.
A few laps later, 20 cars came down pit road to take fuel to make it to the end of Stage 2. The group was led by Wallace, Ryan Preece, Joey Logao and Martin Truex Jr. Preece was nabbed for speeding entering pit road and had to serve a pass-thru penalty.
Busch led the next group down pit road and one lap later Kyle Larson led another group as the entire field took fuel.
Kyle Larson and Josh Berry led the restart as Stage 2 began on Lap 70. Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace also started near the front. But Joey Logano, the 2015 Daytona 500 champion who won the pole on Wednesday, led a surge on the outside, taking the pack three-wide to take over the lead on Lap 72.
The pole sitter has not won the Daytona 500 since Dale Jarrett triumphed in 2000.
Chase Elliott, NASCAR's most popular driver, won the opening stage of the 2024 Daytona, edging his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson at the line. Elliott got a push from Ross Chastain in Turn 4 on the final lap to push him past Larson at the line.
Chevrolet drivers were the big winners of the 60-lap, opening segment and took the top six positions. After superior green-flag pit stops, Chevy drivers were grouped together in the closing stretch and held off a group of Toyota drivers. Here are the top 10 drivers in the first segment, who will all receive stage points:
A large group of nine Chevrolets hit pit road for a splash of fuel with 10 laps to go in Stage 1, led by former NASCAR Cup Series champions Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson. One lap later, on Lap 56, Bubba Wallace led the Toyota drivers down pit road, including Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick.
Green flag pit-stops began on Lap 40 of the opening stage, led by three cars from Team Penske. Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric led a group of cars down pit road to fuel up with enough gas to finish the stage. Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell and Daniel Hemric also pitted with the Penske cars.
One lap later, Chris Buescher came down pit road on his own, as did Michael McDowell on Lap 47 – never a good idea at superspeedways, when staying in the pack is optimal for speed.
The Daytona 500 restarted on Lap 12 with Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell pacing the field. Blaney, who had moved to the rear before the start because he was driving a backup car, elected to stay out on track when most of the field hit pit road during the early caution for fuel and/or fresh tires.
The caution flag flew because of a multi-car crash on Lap 6. Seven cars were involved, and Harrison Burton, Carson Hocevar, Kaz Grala, and Austin Dillon were forced to take their cars to the garage with excessive damage – ending their race early.
Just six laps into the 2024 Daytona 500, a multicar crash has already occurred. While racing three-wide in tight packs, Brad Keselowski, on the outside lane, got into the back of John Hunter Nemecheck, who swerved into the middle lane and into Harrison Burton, who then made hard contact with Carson Hocevar, sending both into the grass. As Burton and Hocevar came back onto the track, they collected Austin Dillon, Kaz Grala, Ryan Preece, and Jimmie Johnson.
Six drivers had to drop to the rear of the field before the green flag waved because they were forced to go to backup cars after crashing in Thursday's Daytona Duel races. The drivers include reigning series champion Ryan Blaney in the No. 12 Ford and two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch in the No. 8 Chevrolet. Also dropping to the rear: William Byron (No. 24 Chevrolet), Noah Gragson (No. 10 Ford), Kaz Grala (No. 36 Ford) and Daniel Hemric (No. 31 Chevrolet).
Two former champions led the 40-driver field as the green flag waved at Daytona International Speedway for the "The Great American Race." Joey Logano, the 2015 champion, was on the pole in the No. 22 Ford, and Michael McDowell, the 2021 winner, started alongside in the the No. 34 Ford.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. edged two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano in double overtime to win the 2023 Daytona 500. It marked Stenhouse’s third career Cup victory and his first since he won the Daytona summer race in 2017. The victory was also the first Daytona 500 win for JTG Daugherty Racing, a small team that hadn’t been to victory lane in any Cup Series race since 2014.
The winner of the Daytona 500 will be presented with the Harley J. Earl Trophy, a four-foot-tall, five-foot-wide black and silver creation adorned with the winners of every Daytona 500.
The trophy is named after Harley J. Earl, an automobile designer, the father of the Corvette and the second commissioner of NASCAR.
They don't get to keep it, though. After the presentation, the big trophy, also known as the Harley J. Earl Perpetual Trophy, gets put back on display at Daytona International Speedway and the winner gets a smaller replica with a black base and a scaled-down version of the Firebird One that Earl created in 1954.
The winner's car also is put on display next to the trophy for fans to see over the next year. — C.A. Bridges, USA TODAY Network
The total purse — all the money available to win — for the 2024 Daytona 500 is a record-breaking $28,035,991, up by more than $1 million from 2023, when the purse was $26,934,357. But as of 2016, NASCAR has not revealed how much of that the winner actually gets and how much goes to other drivers.
In 2015, it came out to about 9% of the total, so if that still holds, the winner of the 2024 Daytona 500 should get a payday of about $2.5 million. — C.A. Bridges, USA TODAY Network
The 2024 Daytona 500 is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. ET at Daytona International Speedway with the green flag around 4:30 p.m. ET.
Fox is broadcasting the Daytona 500 with play-by-announcer Mike Joy and color commentators Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick.
The Daytona 500 can be live streamed on the FoxSports website and on the FoxSports app.
Before the green flag flies, drivers must first be given a command to hit the track. That is the job of the grand marshal. For the 2024 Daytona 500, that job belongs to actor, producer, and former WWE star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who will deliver the proverbial "four most important words in motorsports”: “Drivers, start your engines.”
A race can be called early if the rain will not stop, and the forecast continues to look bleak. But a race cannot be declared official until at least 100 laps have been completed or Stage 2 ends, whichever comes first (For today's race, Stage 2 ends at lap 130). If a race is called early, the driver in the lead at that point is declared the winner.
After Sunday's postponement, it's natural for weather to be on the minds of fans. So what happens if it rains once the race goes green?
NASCAR officials will first throw a yellow caution flag and then bring the cars down pit road to their stalls. From there, officials will throw a red flag, halting the race, and teams will cover the cars after the drivers exit. But crews are not allowed to work on cars or fix any damage during a red flag.
During a stoppage, you might see your favorite drivers or teams hit social media to converse with fans, do television interviews, grab some food, or just lay low.
Once the rain has slowed down or stopped, the fleet of Air Titans hit the track to dry it out. The Air Titans are big vacuum/sweeper trucks equipped with compressed air to blow water off the track and suck it up. Once the track is deemed safe enough to drive on, the race resumes.
Richard Petty truly was the king at Daytona. Petty won the Daytona 500 seven times (1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1979 and 1981), three more than the next closest driver, Cale Yarborough (1968, 1977, 1983 and 1984).
Denny Hamlin has the most Daytona 500 wins among active drivers. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who will start eighth in the No. 11 Toyota, has won three times (2016, 2019 and 2020). Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson (2006 and 2013) is the only other driver in the 2024 Daytona 500 field with more than one win; the co-owner of Legacy Motor Club is driving the No. 84 Toyota in the 2024 race.
Click for a full list of Daytona 500 winners by year.
It will be an all-Ford front row with two former Daytona 500 winners pacing the field. Joey Logano, the 2015 winner, won the pole Wednesday night. The two-time Cup Series champion will start alongside 2021 Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell.
Thursday night's Daytona Duel winners will start on Row 2. Tyler Reddick starts third to lead the Toyota contingent, followed by fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell. Chase Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, starts fifth, the best of the Chevrolet drivers.
Here are the top-10 starters for the 2024 Daytona 500. Click here for the full starting lineup:
Denny Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner, is the favorite to win today’s race, according to BetMGM, along with two-time Cup Series champions Joey Logano and Kyle Busch, and reigning series champion Ryan Blaney.
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Here are drivers with the best odds to win the 2024 Daytona 500, per BetMGM as of Monday afternoon:
Drivers will not race for 500 laps today but 500 miles. The oval at Daytona International Speedway is 2.5 miles, so to reach 500 miles, drivers need to race 200 laps around the track.
Nearly every NASCAR race is broken down into three stages, and drivers can collect stage points for finishing in the top 10 of a stage and a bonus point if they win a stage that would carry over to the playoffs later in the season.
Here the length of the stages for the 2024 Daytona 500: Stage 1: 65 laps; Stage 2: 65 laps; Stage 3: 70 laps.
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