Austin Cindric and Penske Racing took the home the checkered flag Sunday in the Daytona 500. Cindric held off a hard charge late by Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Blaney to get the win. He becomes just the 9th driver in history to get his 1st career cup win at the 500, but is the second straight driver to do so. Michael Mcdowell did it in 2021, prior to that Trevor Bayne was the last to do so in 2011.
Cindric won the race in the #2 car that was vacated by Brad Kesleowski after last season. He finished 9th in the race but ruffled some feathers along the way, given his aggressive style. Kesleowski caused two wrecks during the race Sunday, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was involved in one. Stenhouse Jr. was heated and voiced his issues with Kesleowski's tactics. He told Bob Pockross of Fox Sports " I guess he (Kesleowski) was going to wreck everybody until he won the race"
Bubba Wallace finished second marking his 2nd straight 2nd place finish at Daytona dating back to last August. Bubba has showed his super speedway prowess with his finishes at Daytona and his win last season at Talladega.
The rest of the top is below.
3rd- Chase Briscoe
4th- Ryan Blaney
5th- Aric Almirola
6th- Kyle Busch
7th- Michael Mcdowell
8th- David Ragan
9th- Brad Keseleowski
10th- Chase Elliott
Next up is the Wise 400 in Fontana, California. It'll mark the first Nascar run at Fontana since 2020. The track didn't host a race in 2021 due to Covid-19 restrictions.