Daytona Beach, Florida – Denny Hamlin thought he was in the right place in the last round of Daytona 500 on Sunday. Cole Custer saw an opportunity. William Byron recovered the checkered flag.
Byron went from the seventh to the first on the backstretch when he slipped by crushing cars to win the Daytona 500 for the second consecutive year.
The contact between Custer and Hamlin sparked the incident that changed the result of the race.
Winners, losers of 2025 Daytona 500 won by William Byron
Daytona Beach, Florida – A look at the winners and the losers of Daytona 500 on Sunday evening.
“At the end of the day, you push and push and pushing the side as hard as possible to win the Daytona 500,” said Custer after finishing 21st.
“… I would have liked to have waited for a few more corners (to go for the head), but I had such a big race of (Chase Briscoe), I decided to take it on the backstretch. I just need to look at the replay closer to see if I am written too hard or if I am a little hit on the back left or anything. Something was too much.
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“I absolutely talked about it to Tom because I want him to do the project, and we want to be part of it if it had to happen.”
Hamlin said he had timed a race to make a Austin Cindric pass for the Tour 2, putting Hamlin in position, at least for a while, to win his fourth Daytona 500.
“I had him in a vulnerable place where he was not going to be able to block,” said Hamlin about Cindric. “I went high thinking:” Ok, the race comes from the upper side, let me climb up up there and control this. »»
Custer followed Hamlin, then darted the upper way after a briscoe push.
“(Custer) came with such a big race,” said Hamlin, who ranked 24th. “… it was going to be good for one of us, but it did not end well either.”
Joey Logano defended his move and said that a late block from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. had triggered the incident.
Hamlin said he had offered some advice to Custer after the race.
“I just said to him, from the experience I had in these races, you have to go down (turn) 4, then you can turn left, do everything you have to do, contact”, said Hamlin. “It’s just that I thought a little too early, but not everyone will do it as I would. This does not mean that I knew the right way.
Custer, in the beginnings of the Haas factory team, said that it would go away from the race with “positive points and negatives.
“You have had a blow to Daytona 500, so you are definitely soft to be on this subject,” he said. “It is the biggest race in your life and you have had a shot and you did not win. At the end of the day, a new team, new people and how much they had to work on this car And always have a chance of victory, so I think there are also positive points.
William Byron wins the second day after 500 consecutive
He dodges an accident of the last blow to become the youngest driver with several victories in the great American race.
Byron said on Monday after looking at the reruns of the last round, he had a better idea of how he succeeded.
“When I had the chance to look at him, it made much more sense in my head of what happened, then see the camera by car,” he said. “… I moved to go on the third way and expect the Tour (turns) 4 and to see the crash and to be somehow against the wall and to cross was a good time suddenly on. “”
After cleaning the accident, Byron kept at high speed to beat Tyler Reddick for the victory. Nascar only put caution after Byron crossed the finish line. With the Backstretch accident and the nearby emergency equipment, Nascar allowed the race to end under Green, knowing that cars would slow down after crossing the finish line.
“Honestly, I think if I had checked (before arrival), I think Reddick would have reached me and probably exceeded me,” said Byron.
