2025 Daytona 500
NASCAR has moved up the start to 2 p.m. ET, about an hour earlier than scheduled, because of potential weather on Sunday.
When the green flag drops, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric will start on the front row with Bubba Wallace and Erik Jones in row two. Wallace won the first Duel qualifying race on Thursday night, while Cindric was ahead of Jones on the final lap when the caution flag flew in the second Duel. Briscoe and Cindric earned their front row spots thanks to their qualifying speeds during Wednesday night’s front row qualifying session.
Past Cup Series champions and now retired part-time drivers Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson earned two of the four open spots available to non-chartered teams with their speeds in Wednesday night’s qualifying. Justin Allgaier raced his way into the field Thursday night in the first Duel to give Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team its first Cup Series start ever, while Corey LaJoie earned the final transfer spot in the second Duel race.
The 40-car field will be 41 cars thanks to a new provisional system implemented by NASCAR ahead of the season. Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves will start 41st after he crashed out of his Duel race. Castroneves is making the first Cup Series start of his career.
Here’s what else you need to know ahead of Sunday’s race.
Hendrick goes for double digits
Another Daytona 500 win will make Hendrick Motorsports the winningest team in Daytona 500 history.
Hendrick tied Petty Enterprises with a ninth Daytona 500 win in 2024 when William Byron took the checkered flag. That 500 victory was the first in 10 seasons for a Hendrick driver after Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. went back-to-back in 2013 and 2014.
Hendrick has as good a shot as anyone of getting that 10th Daytona 500 win, too. The team’s cars looked strong during Thursday night’s qualifying races even though both Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson were caught up in crashes. It’ll be a stunner if there aren’t multiple Hendrick cars up front for much of the race.
“Hendrick Motorsports has so much history as it is, and I feel like they just add in another win would be more to that,” Byron said. “I’m excited for the week. I’m really ready to get going. I feel like all of our teams are really prepared and we’re just ready to go.”
Denny Hamlin aims to tie Cale Yarborough
Denny Hamlin is the only driver racing full-time in 2025 who has won multiple Daytona 500s and one of just two multi-time winners in Sunday’s field alongside Johnson, a two-time Daytona 500 winner.
Hamlin, 44, scored those three victories over five years in 2016, 2019 and 2020. He’s been one of the best racers at Daytona and Talladega over the past decade, but it’s also worth wondering if his greatness at drafting-style races has been mitigated a bit by the way the current Cup Series car races. Drivers are unable to get runs in the draft as easily as they could previously and have to heavily rely on pushes from cars behind.
“[Qualifying] has never mattered as much as it matters now — simply because the way these cars punch holes in the air, there is just not the ability to drive from the back to the front,” Hamlin said. “The last year of [a previous generation car] I restarted 29th at Talladega on a green-white-checkered and won the race. That day is over with. You have to be well up front.”
A fourth win would tie Hamlin with Cale Yarborough for the second-most Daytona 500 victories behind Richard Petty’s seven.
Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch are the betting favorites
Three of the top five favorites ahead of Sunday’s race have never won a Daytona 500. Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch are the favorites at +1200 ahead of Joey Logano, Hamlin and Brad Keselowski at +1400. Logano is searching for his second Daytona 500 win after winning the race a decade ago.
Busch is looking for his first Daytona 500 win in his 20th start. He’s very aware that Dale Earnhardt won his only Daytona 500 in 1998 in his 20th start.
“Twenty years of trying,” Busch said. “There was another storied racer of the past that won on his 20th try and that was a pretty big deal.”
Keselowski came close in 2021, but crashed on the final lap as he and then-teammate Logano raced for the lead with a push from eventual winner Michael McDowell.
Will the race go longer than 500 miles?
Recent history says it’s more likely than not the Daytona 500 won’t be done after 500 miles. Five of the last seven races have gone past their scheduled distance because of crashes near the end of the race. Two years ago, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won a Daytona 500 that went 530 miles — the longest in race history.
Two of the three Daytona 500 races with this current car have gone past their scheduled distance and each race has featured at least one crash with a minimum of eight cars. There’s very likely going to be a big wreck on Sunday. And it’s probably going to happen late in the race as drivers push each other to jockey for position.
“First, all the time,” Logano said Wednesday when asked where he wanted to be when the white flag waved. “You don’t know when the yellow is going to come out. Do you know you’re going to finish the race under the green? No, so I want to be first.”
Yes, we have to talk about the weather
The Daytona 500 has been delayed by rain in three of the past five seasons. In 2020 and 2024, the race finished on Monday. In 2021, the race was delayed well into Sunday night.
Unfortunately, we have to mention the weather forecast for this year’s race too. There’s a 60% chance of rain on Sunday.
Due to the threat of rain, NASCAR has decided to move the green flag drop from 3:11 ET to 2 ET.
Daytona 500 starting lineup
Here is the starting lineup for Sunday’s race. However, it may change slightly at the green flag as some drivers will be switching to backup cars following crashes in their Duel qualifying races.
1. Chase Briscoe
2. Austin Cindric
3. Bubba Wallace
4. Erik Jones
5. William Byron
6. Chris Buescher
7. Ty Dillon
8. Denny Hamlin
9. Ross Chastain
10. Joey Logano
11. Tyler Reddick
12. Corey LaJoie
13. AJ Allmendinger
14. Todd Gilliland
15. Austin Dillon
16. Ryan Blaney
17. Chase Elliott
18. John Hunter Nemechek
19. Justin Allgaier
20. Christopher Bell
21. Kyle Busch
22. Kyle Larson
23. Ty Gibbs
24. Riley Herbst
25. Michael McDowell
26. Shane van Gisbergen
27. Ryan Preece
28. Cody Ware
29. Josh Berry
30. Cole Custer
31. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
32. Noah Gragson
33. Carson Hocevar
34. Brad Keselowski
35. Justin Haley
36. Daniel Suarez
37. Zane Smith
38. Alex Bowman
39. Martin Truex Jr.
40. Jimmie Johnson
41. Helio Castroneves