How Penske's rookie sensation opened NASCAR's new era in style

The 64th running of the Daytona 500 took three-and-a-half hours to complete but came down, as it so often does, to the final seconds. Austin Cindric – on his team boss Roger Penske’s 85th birthday – elbowed his team-mate Ryan Blaney into the wall and then fended off Toyota’s Bubba Wallace by 0.036s for a remarkable victory.

On the debut of the Next Gen car in NASCAR’s Cup Series, and in front of a packed house of over 120,000 fans, it was ‘next-gen driver’ Cindric – running full-time in the series as a rookie for one of America’s finest teams – who galloped with the hounds all day to become the second-youngest driver to win America’s Great Race at the age of 23.

The 500-miler required an overtime finish, after the fourth multi-car pileup of the day caused a red flag and clear-up with four laps to go.

At the final restart, run over just two laps, Cindric’s Penske Ford Mustang was pushed into a clear lead by RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski and cut across the bows of his Team Penske team-mate Blaney to hug the inside lane. Keselowski, who stayed in the outside lane, was now being shoved by another Ford, that of Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe.

The only Ford rival in the frame was Toyota’s Wallace, who was looking for all the friends he could muster after most of his colleagues had been wiped out of the race earlier – most of them by the black hat of the day, Keselowski.

As the white flag flew to herald the final lap, with 2.5 miles between him and stock car immortality, Cindric led Blaney and Keselowski in a Ford 1-2-3. On the backstretch, where most of the momentum is generated by bump drafting, Wallace shoved Blaney into Cindric before dragging his brake, so Aric Almirola (Stewart-Haas Ford) got into his tail in Turn 3. This was the final push for victory…

Cindric narrowly held on at the flag to win ahead of fast-advancing Wallace on his inside with Blaney still fishtailing behind to his outside. Behind, Ragan taps Keselowski, which will send the latter into McDowell

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Cindric briefly left the sanctity of the double-yellow line at the bottom of the track, to try and disturb the air for the chasing Blaney and Keselowski, but the race’s outcome would be decided by pushes and blocks in the following dozen seconds.

Firing off Almirola’s nose, Wallace bumped Blaney through the final corner – the top three cars now running nose-to-tail as, behind them, Briscoe and Kyle Busch got into the wall on the outside, pressing on with even greater momentum. Meantime, Keselowski found himself in no man’s land, stranded in a middle lane all of his own as he ran out of anyone who’d go near him.

As they raced to the finish in the tri-oval, Blaney jinked right to try and pass Cindric over the top in the frantic dash to the line, but his team-mate saw this coming and veered to the right himself, banging fenders and causing Blaney to brush and then tank-slap into the wall. But to Cindric’s left side, Wallace was still coming hard too – and more contact was made as Cindric pulled down – which was enough to beat Wallace by a fraction.

"I knew I had the car to do it, but there’s so many things that have to play out correctly and putting yourself in position" Austin Cindric

As they all crossed the line in a heartbeat, Briscoe snatching third from Blaney, last year’s winner Michael McDowell was sent into a wicked head-on hit into the wall by a combination of David Ragan (who also crashed hard) and Keselowski (who’d wrecked just about everyone else, so wasn’t about to stop now).

After the sparks had flown, one delirious celebration and many recriminations began, the curtain closing on a race that delivered exactly what the crowd had come to see – even if perhaps their favourite driver wasn’t in Victory Lane. Plenty of cheers rang around this packed-out superspeedway that’s seen a thing or 500 in its time.

Stood victorious was Cindric, the 14th Ford driver to win the Daytona 500 since 1963 and the son of Roger Penske’s right-hand racing president Tim: “I knew I had the car to do it, but there’s so many things that have to play out correctly and putting yourself in position,” he said. “Sometimes you have to force people to help you and I definitely didn’t expect any help throughout the day.

“It's a racer's dream, and so many people get close to it, and I feel very grateful and very proud to be able to pull it off.”

After the flag several cars shunted, with McDowell and Ragan hitting the outside wall hard and followed in by Blaney, as Keselowski spins to the left

Photo by: Ben Earp / NKP / Motorsport Images

In his wake lay a field of angry men, none more so than Wallace, who beat himself up about finishing second in the 500 again. Only two Daytona 500 finishes have been closer: Denny Hamlin’s 2016 win by 0.01s and Kevin Harvick’s by 0.02s in 2007. And there’s nothing worse than being a close runner-up, right Bubba?

“Just dejected,” he rued. “But the thing that keeps me up is just the hard work that we put into our speedway stuff and the hard work from everybody at 23XI Racing, proud of them, can't thank them enough.

“But just short. I thought our Toyota team-mates did good work until they got picked off one, two, three throughout the race, so we just had to survive. I’m going to be pissed off about this one for a while. I was happy on the first second place we got a couple years ago. This one sucks when you're that close.”

Even more rueful was Blaney, who’d just been walled by his rookie team-mate in the biggest race of the year and finished fourth. That clearly stung.

“The last lap I got good pushes on the bottom from [Wallace] and then I was able to get Austin in front,” said Blaney. “Off of four, where we were good enough to make a move, I got blocked and I ended up getting fenced.

“I’m happy for Roger Penske, winning the 500 on his birthday. It’s just one of those things. It didn’t work out. We still ended up fourth, but I don’t know another perfect position we could have put ourselves in to win the race.

“I was committed to him until I was 100 percent sure that one of us was gonna win… and one of us did.”
When pushed if it was fair or foul, Blaney replied: “I don’t know. Congrats to him, I guess. You’ve got to throw a block in that situation.”

While Cindric’s win came as a shock to many, if you rewind back to lap 41 – when he punted Briscoe into a spin under yellow – the outcome might have been very different.

Briscoe finished third despite being turned around early doors by Cindric

Photo by: Jasen Vinlove / NKP / Motorsport Images

Backmarker Kaz Grala had lost a wheel after the opening round of pitstops, causing the race’s first caution period, and at Turn 1 the drivers who’d finish first and third a few hours later got together as the field checked up in avoidance and Cindric sent Briscoe spinning off his nose.

“Definitely an ‘oh shit!’ moment pretty early on,” admitted Cindric later.

“We were very fortunate that we didn't get any damage,” admitted his crew chief Jeremy Bullins. “I know Austin feels bad about turning [Briscoe] around there. I think the position he was in, he couldn't see the tyre, and I think those guys in front of him did and started checking up for it.

“Austin just kind of had too much momentum there, so I'm really glad it didn't ruin the day. It was just one of those things when you get – it's so hard to see past the guy in front of you that those guys were able to see something he wasn't.”

After a second caution, when Justin Haley’s car broke a right-front wheel, the Ford vs Toyota duel turned nuclear coming off Turn 2 on lap 63

Let’s go back a little further. Once the Chevrolets that had locked out the front row had fallen back, the early exchanges were all about Ford vs Toyota. Keselowski led by the end of lap one, easily sweeping past poleman Kyle Larson, as Fords owned the outside lane. The Toyotas were fewer in number but more than equal on laptime, as Kyle Busch led their early charge.

That first caution for Grala/Briscoe followed a round of green-flag pitstops – which were enlivened by 1997 Formula 1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve entering the pits going backwards, a moment from which he recovered (he’d finish the day in 22nd, two laps down).

After a second caution, when Justin Haley’s car broke a right-front wheel, the Ford vs Toyota duel turned nuclear coming off Turn 2 on Lap 63. Keselowski was pushing the famed #21 Wood Bros car of Harrison Burton hard, too hard as it proved. “Can’t push on the right, Brad,” wailed Burton after he was sent spinning, first into the Chevy of William Byron and was then struck by the colliding Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain.

Despite his roof flap deploying as designed, Burton’s car took off, performed a perfect flip, and landed back on its wheels. While he was out of the race, the real damage was sustained by Toyota as Kyle Busch spun, and three-time 500 winner Denny Hamlin took enough damage to put him out on the spot, and Bell had to go to the garage for repairs. Byron’s car slammed the inside wall hard and Chastain’s Chevy was wrecked too among the eight cars involved.

“The bottom lane was nicely controlled but I noticed the outside line was squirrelly,” sighed Byron. “We were doing a good job with our gaps, and [Burton] slid down the track. We were definitely going to finish in the top five in that stage, our car was really fast.”

Joe Gibbs Toyota team-mates Busch, Hamlin and Bell all took damage in the lap 63 pileup. Only Busch made the finish

Photo by: Matthew T. Thacker / NKP / Motorsport Images

Keselowski, who initiated the huge shunt, told his spotter: “I thought I was attached to [Burton] pretty good. I was surprised, that was not the area I was struggling with taking a push.”

Burton added: “Obviously, I’m not questioning Brad’s ability, but I think he just got a little wide on my right side and kind of shot me to the inside there. We were working good together up to that point.

“There were a couple moments where I was having to save it kind of sideways and obviously just one too many and we ended up upside-down. Once I got backwards I just blew right over.”

That prematurely ended the first stage, with Martin Truex winning out having just been in front of Byron as the carnage ensued behind him.

The second stage ended with the same result, with Truex winning again but in altogether different circumstances. In some hectic racing to the finish, Larson got shuffled out of the lead by a Keselowski divebomb at Turn 2, with his old team-mate Joey Logano pushing him hard. Logano then bailed on Keselowski, to pick up a draft from Briscoe, who was desperately trying not to go a lap down (after overshooting his pit stall during green-flag stops), but it was Truex who got the best run of all off the final corner and took the stage victory.

The final stage was relatively tame until Tyler Reddick’s rear suspension broke off Turn 4, and he was clipped by Villeneuve. In the mess that ensued, Truex collected Reddick, ending his hopes of a perfect day, while Kurt Busch and Logano also got involved and sustained damage that ended their hopes of further 500 glory.

With 41 laps to go, Cindric was now out front after a rapid two-tyre stop from Penske, heading Wallace, Blaney and Erik Jones who’d taken fuel-only. The earlier Ford vs Toyota battle was now resumed, with Cindric and Blaney racing hard side by side with Wallace and Kyle Busch.

Chevrolet’s best bet was Ricky Stenhouse, who made a perfectly-timed run to disrupt the Toyota line with 25 laps remaining, and entered the fray as a serious contender for the win.

Truex (19) won the first two stages, but it was Cindric (2) who took the flag when it really mattered

Photo by: Matthew T. Thacker / NKP / Motorsport Images

The flow of the event was disrupted when Larson got a huge run in the tri-oval but came across a slowing Buescher and Harvick just at the wrong time. Harvick’s car turned into Noah Gragson, who’d been having a great run on his 500 debut, while Todd Gilliland also took a hard trip into the wall along with Jones.

That red flagged the race with nine laps remaining. At the restart, Cindric was pushed into the lead by Blaney, while Stenhouse was being shoved by Keselowski.

Another shunt then happened, as Keselowski pushed Stenhouse into a spin off Turn 4, moving TV commentator Tony Stewart to quip “This is a movie we’ve seen before”. The rotating Stenhouse was collected by Buescher, in a car ironically owned by Keselowski. Wallace took a whack in the shunt too, knocking out a toe-link in his suspension.

But he carried on in battle, undeterred, just like Blaney (who’d suffered an early clash with Larson), just like Briscoe after multiple setbacks and near-misses, and just like Cindric (after biffing Briscoe) into that final overtime charge to the finish.

"For me, yeah, just holding off the wolves, it's the race that means everything to everybody" Austin Cindric

“I felt like I had a really good chance to lose it, and to lose it means you've got a shot to win it,” chirped Cindric in a cross somewhere between Talladega Nights and Anchorman. “Being on the front row for the last couple restarts of the Daytona 500, you can't really envision a better case scenario for you as a driver.

“That red flag, you definitely have time to reflect, and you can either reflect on what you're going to do when you succeed or how you're going to succeed, and I definitely lived in the moment there trying to figure it out.

“Once I crossed the start-finish line for the white flag, everyone behind me bailed. Everyone started lifting. Everyone was trying to get their runs, and I was probably 20 per cent throttle for most of the last lap, just trying to stay relatively close to where I could at least defend something or be able to be close enough to be able to get to the tri-oval.

“I knew if I got to the tri-oval, and I was nose ahead, I would get it. For me, yeah, just holding off the wolves, it's the race that means everything to everybody. Once you come off of Turn 4, all gloves are off and everybody wants it.”

Cindric drinks in the spoils of victory after claiming his first Cup Series win on the biggest stage of them all

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images