DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In just his eighth career start, Austin Cindric held off the pack, blocking teammate Ryan Blaney and edging out Bubba Wallace to win the 64th Daytona 500 Sunday. Cindric beat Wallace to the line by .036 seconds, the fourth-closest finish in the race’s history.
Cindric, 23, is also the second-youngest winner of the 500 and the first Cup series rookie to win the Great American Race since Trevor Bayne won at the age of 20 in 2011.
Cindric was ecstatic after the win in the first points-paying race for the NASCAR NextGen car in front of a sold out capacity crowd.
“Everyone has worked so hard on this Next Gen car and through the whole process,” Cindric said. “I am so excited. This makes up for losing a championship in the last race I was in”
Cindric won in his full-season debut in the flagship No. 2 Ford Mustang for Team Penske. Coincidentally, the win came on the 85th birthday of Cindric’s boss and team owner, automobile magnate Roger Penske.
“I’m surrounded by great people, that’s all there is to it,” Cindric said regarding his team. “I know there’s going to be highs and lows, being a rookie. I’m just grateful for the opportunity and excited to climb the mountain ahead of us… We’re in the Playoffs—that’s one box checked. My gosh, what an awesome group of fans; what an awesome race car. I’m just really thankful.”
Bubba Wallace’s second-place finish was his second runner-up result in the 500 in five starts.
“I thought our Toyota teammates did good work until they got picked off one, two, three throughout the race, so we just had to survive,” Wallace said. “Great Speedweeks, though. We’ll come home second. This one sucks when you’re that close, but all-in-all, happy for our team, happy for our partners, and on to California.”
Chase Briscoe rallied from an early spin to finish third, while Cindric’s teammate Ryan Blaney had to settle for 4th after being blocked into the wall by Cindric coming into the tri-oval. Aric Almirola, in his final Daytona 500, rounded out the top 5.
As for the driver Cindric replaced in the Penske No. 2, Brad Keselowski led the most laps (67) in his debut as an owner-driver for RFK Racing. However, Keselowski also caused two crashes during the race, spinning Harrison Burton in Stage 1 and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. late in the race. The crash with Burton was particularly noteworthy, as Burton flipped on his roof in a multi-car crash that also took out three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin.
Burton escaped unscathed from the crash, while Hamlin laid blame at Keselowski’s feet for being over-aggressive too early in the race.
“The 6 (Keselowski) was pushing the 21 (Burton) and you could see the 21 was kind of getting out of control there,” Hamlin said, who failed to finish a Daytona 500 for the first time in 17 starts. “So you know the mind-set was that you’ve got to back off, but I think the 6 was just insistent on pushing him at all costs and eventually turned the 21 around.
“Tough, you know, considering it was just for the stage,” Hamlin added. “We were kind of boxed in there where I noticed that something was going to happen, but I was boxed in, I was behind a teammate (Kyle Busch), and I wanted to try to help. Again, just too aggressive pushing right there when they weren’t lined up and in control.”
The NASCAR Cup Series will kick off their annual West Coast Swing on Feb. 27 with the Wise Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.