Daytona 500: William Byron wins his second straight Daytona 500 after last-lap crash

William Byron won his second straight Daytona 500 after a last-lap wreck took out race leader Denny Hamlin on the backstretch.

Byron took over the lead when Hamlin went spinning after taking the lead from Austin Cindric on the backstretch on the final lap of a green-white-checker restart.

The finish was set up by a crash with less than five laps to go when Christopher Bell got turned by Cole Custer when Bell was alongside his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin for the lead. Bell went into the wall and Preece’s car catapulted off Bell’s car and flipped over before backing into the wall.

A crash with 15 laps to go took out a host of contenders including Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch. Logano had a run on 2023 Daytona 500 champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Stenhouse moved to block Logano’s momentum. He continued to do so as Logano attempted to pass him in the middle of a three-wide situation, and Stenhouse continued to block.

That didn’t work out well.