The 64th running of the Daytona 500 has concluded, and Austin Cindric has come out on top. The 23-year-old NASCAR driver edges out Bubba Wallace to win the Daytona 500, and it’s the second Cup Series victory in his career. This is the second time Wallace earned runner-up in the Daytona 500. He just missed out on winning the race in his Daytona 500 debut in 2018.
Winning the Daytona 500 gives the driver a lot of momentum for the rest of the NASCAR Cup Series Season. However, winning NASCAR’s biggest race doesn’t guarantee the driver a Cup Series title. The last driver to win the Daytona 500 and the Cup Series Championship in the same year was Jimmie Johnson in 2013. Johnson actually did it twice as he also won the Daytona 500 and the Cup Series title in 2006. Johnson is one of the five drivers to accomplish that feat. The other four are Lee Petty, Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and Jeff Gordon.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Entering this year’s Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin was the odds-on favorite as he won the race three times. Before today’s race, Hamlin finished in the top five four times. But as successful Hamlin has been at Daytona International Speedway, he’s still looking for his first Cup Series championship. The closest he’s been to winning the title was in 2010 when he came in second. Hamlin came in third last year and four in 2019 and 2020.
The longest-tenured driver at this year’s Daytona 500 in terms of career stars is Kurt Busch who won the race in 2017. Busch enters this season as a member of 23XI racing which is co-owned by Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan. Last week, Busch spoke to PopCulture.com about what he needed to do to win the Daytona 500.
“To win a Daytona 500 is like winning a championship,” Busch exclusively told PopCulture. “And you do it with a program and a process to make sure you’re checking off all the right boxes. So even little things like weather, when you have changes in the weather, change the way you approach some of the pit stop sequences. So, looking ahead, it’s not going to be a super hot day, so that will help with tire wear. That’ll help with the engines and the fuel mileage.”
