Daytona 500: Five drivers who could win NASCAR’s biggest event
The 66th running of the Daytona 500 – the “Great American Race” – kicks off the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season Sunday afternoon.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. arrives as the defending champion, having ended his five-year, 199-race winless stretch with a 2023 victory for JTG Daugherty Racing, the team owned in part by former NBA player Brad Daugherty. He edged Joey Logano for his third superspeedway victory (the others came in 2017 at Talladega and that summer at Daytona) after two overtimes and 212 laps in what was the longest Daytona 500 in history. He also won the pole for the 2020 Daytona 500.
This year’s 200-lap race around the 2.5-mile, high-banked oval will be broadcast by Fox and starts at 11:30 a.m. As Stenhouse put it, “You definitely need the luck. You need the car and the skill to go out and do what you need to do” to win.
Here are five drivers who could have that fortuitous combination this year:
1. Ryan Blaney
Four of Blaney’s 10 wins have come on superspeedway tracks (those longer than 2 miles), but despite finishing second in 2017 and 2020, Blaney has not won the Daytona 500 (and was put in the wall by his Penske teammate Austin Cindric on a 2022 dash to the finish line). Blaney won the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2023 and finished third in the first race of 2024, the Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles on Feb. 3. Blaney was involved in an 11-car crash during Thursday night’s Duels at Daytona International Speedway. He and some other racers will use backup cars in Sunday’s race.
2. Joey Logano
The 2018 and 2022 Cup champion, Logano called his 2023 runner-up finish in Team Penske’s Ford “the worst, man. … There’s nothing like winning the Daytona 500. That’s why it stings so much finishing second.” No less than Denny Hamlin predicts a strong season for the 2015 Daytona 500 champion. “I do believe this is a – this could be a big Joey Logano resurgence year,” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “I mean, he was in contention to win (before finishing fourth in the Clash) or had a chance to win. He wasn’t the best car, the No. 54 (of Ty Gibbs) was. But I am – I am going to be fair, and I believe Joey’s in for a big year.” He got a nice start, winning the pole position for Sunday’s race by edging Michael McDowell.
3. Chris Buescher
The most recent winner at the Daytona oval, Buescher won the Coke Zero Sugar 400 last August. He finished fourth in the Daytona 500 last year, but his 2024 season hit a bump when he failed to qualify for the Clash, which was limited to the 22 fastest cars. In 2023, he had nine top-five finishes and 17 top 10s, which included three wins in a five-race stretch late in the summer.
4. Brad Keselowski
Brad Keselowski, who finished eighth in the Clash, leads all active drivers with seven superspeedway victories, but the Daytona 500 has always slipped away. It “just feels like a race you don’t win – you get chosen to win,” he said. “All you can do it put yourself in position to win and hope you’re chosen.” Keselowski has led the most laps the past two years, finishing third in 2022 and 10th last year.
5. Denny Hamlin
After a disappointing 2023 season in which he finished fifth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings with 14 top five-finishes and three wins, the 43-year-old Hamlin started 2024 with a Clash victory. The Daytona 500 winner in 2016, 2019 and 2020, Hamlin is the fourth driver to have won the race in back-to-back seasons, joining Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and Sterling Marlin. He has five career superspeedway wins but finished 17th in the Daytona 500 last year.