Making it two times in as many years, William Byron scored the victory in the Daytona 500 Sunday night driving the #24 Axalta Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He is now the fifth driver to achieve the feat, following Richard Petty ('73-'74), Cale Yarborough ('83-'84), Sterling Marlin ('94-'95) and Denny Hamlin ('19-'20).
Byron's win is also the tenth victory in the Daytona 500 for Hendrick Motorsports, who've won the event previously with Geoff Bodine, Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Byron is a 14-time winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, and is now locked into the 2025 Cup Series playoffs.
The race lasted into the late evening, having endured two rain delays spanning multiple hours. The event also received a visit from President Donald Trump, arriving aboard Air Force One in Daytona Beach before greeting the sold-out crowd from pit road. Marvel star Anthony Mackie served as grand marshal, and Jack Reacher actor Alan Ritchson was the honorary pace car driver.
The margin of victory was 0.113 seconds over runner-up finisher Tyler Reddick, with the top two drivers being among the only frontrunners to escape a multi-car crash on the last lap. At a track notorious for inopportune wrecks causing unavoidable ends to otherwise dominant campaigns, for Byron's #24 car to merely escape the carnage two straight years is a victory. To execute in full both years places them in rare historical company.
“Yeah, obviously some good fortune, but just trusted my instincts on the last lap there,” Byron said immediately after his win. “I felt like they were getting squirrelly on the bottom, and I was honestly going to go third 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.”
Two-time Daytona 500 winner Jimmie Johnson finished third in the race, driving a self-owned #84 Toyota in his part-time return from retirement. Polesitter Chase Briscoe finished fourth, and John Hunter Nemechek rounded out the top five. "I have emotions that I didn’t expect to have," Johnson said. "I’ve never been in this position as an owner, and it’s really opened up a different set of emotions. And the pride that I have in this result and the pride that I have in this company, now that we’re trying to achieve and the journey we’re on, I am so satisfied, so happy right now."
Overall, Toyotas accounted for four out of the top five finishers, sweeping positions two through four. Instead of them winning their first Daytona 500 since 2020, however, Chevrolet won its third straight 500 with the Camaro ZL1.
Though the race was fatefully clean for the #24 team, several other top contenders suffered unceremonious retirements. The most memorable incident of the night was the bizarre mid-air flip by Ryan Preece, driving the #60 Ford Mustang for RFK Racing. Preece was impacted by another car causing his front end to achieve lift; he hung seemingly weightlessly in the air for multiple seconds before flipping fully onto his roof, then rolling back over and slamming the outside wall. A battered Preece was reflective after exiting his car. “When the car took off like that, it got really quiet, and all I thought about was my daughter,” he said. “So, I’m lucky to walk away.”
Also of note was a tangle between two former Daytona 500 winners: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Joey Logano made contact on lap 186, creating a pileup that eliminated a shot at winning for both those driver plus Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, and Noah Gragson. Another incident between Cole Custer and Denny Hamlin on the final lap parted the seas for Byron and Reddick, who battled for the win racing back to the finish line. The second place run was not only Reddick's strongest Daytona 500 effort, it was his first time finishing better than 27th in the race.
"I never really finished a race here unless it was 40 laps down, so I’ll take second," Reddick said. "We wanted to get a good start to the year, and we scored a lot of points today."
