In a thrilling photo finish, Denny Hamlin made a pass on Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth for the lead on the final lap on Sunday’s Daytona 500. Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. were side-by-side for the win as they crossed the start-finish line, but Hamlin — who led a race-high 95 laps — prevailed by 0.010 seconds over Truex in a photo finish. Truex earned the runner-up result.
This marks Hamlin’s first Daytona 500 victory, the first for team owner Joe Gibbs since 1993 and the first-ever Daytona 500 win for manufacturer Toyota.
Toyota also swept the top three, as JGR teammate and 2015 Sprint Cup champion Kyle Busch earned a third-place result. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick and JGR’s Carl Edwards — who battled back from an early-race incident — rounded out the top five.
Reigning race winner Joey Logano contended for the lead, but ended up sixth in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford.
One of the pre-race favorites to win the “Great American Race,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw his Daytona 500 Victory Lane dreams with beloved No. 88 car “Amelia” go up in smoke, as he spun off Turn 4 while battling for a top-five position at Lap 170. The Hendrick Motorsports driver was scored 36th after his car was towed off the track.
“We were starting to move forward, get aggressive and we just lost it,” Earnhardt told FOX after a trip to the infield care center.
Earnhardt’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate and rookie Chase Elliott experienced a rough Daytona 500 debut: After starting from the pole, Elliott’s No. 24 Chevrolet got loose in the middle lane, slid across the track and into the grass while running in the top 10 at Lap 19. His car was towed across the track, but the 20-year-old driver returned to the track to salvage a 37th-place result.
“We will just have to look past it and get on for Atlanta,” Elliott said following the wreck. “That is the most important thing now. Can’t get caught up in what happened today, it is irrelevant now. We’ll try and get it fixed and make some laps. Then it’s on to Atlanta and if we can make some laps we will and move forward from here.”
Danica Patrick also went for a ride through the grass with 17 laps to go: Her No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was clipped by Greg Biffle and went spinning across the track. She was scored 35th. Patrick’s teammate Brian Vickers — who is wheeling the No. 14 Chevrolet for injured Tony Stewart — spun out at Lap 56, also collecting Carl Edwards and Trevor Bayne in the melee. Vickers made a trip down pit road for repairs and ultimately rebounded to finish 26th.
BK Racing’s Matt DiBenedetto made contact with reigning XFINITY champion and rookie Chris Buescher and at Lap 92, resulting in hard hits in the wall for the pair. Both drivers walked away from the wreck, but their race cars sustained significant damage and were towed off the track. Buscher was scored 39th, while DiBenedetto was 40th.
The thrilling 200-lap event saw six cautions and 20 lead changes.
The Sprint Cup Series is back on track next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
