NASCAR Live Race Updates: Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona

Welcome to Racing America On SI's live NASCAR race updates post for Saturday night's NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. This post will be updated throughout the day and night on Saturday with key updates leading into and through the final race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season.

Video highlights of crashes or incidents will be populated along with lead changes, stage and race results, and more. Continue checking back for additional updates on the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway throughout the day.

Pre-Race Updates

William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Team Penalized for Unapproved Splitter Adjustment

The good news is that William Byron's No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet passed pre-race inspection for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona on the first attempt through the inspection bay.

Unfortunately, after the car passed inspection, NASCAR Officials spotted the No. 24 team making an unapproved adjustment to the splitter on the front of the car. As a result, NASCAR sent the No. 24 team back to the inspection bay, where the car was run on the USS (Underbody Scanning Station) where it failed inspection due to the unapproved adjustment to the splitter.

NASCAR ejected Rudy Fugle, Byron's crew chief, for the remainder of the weekend. Byron's team will also lose their pit selection for this weekend, will have to drop to the rear of the field for the start of the race, and after the green flag, Byron will have to perform a stop-and-go penalty.

Thankfully, Byron secured the NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship a week ago, so the penalties will likely only impact his ability to rack up additional Playoff Points prior to the start of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs next week.

Read Complete Story, here.

Mother Nature Hands Ryan Blaney Top Starting Spot

Persistent lightning in the area surrounding Daytona International Speedway led to the cancellation of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying on Friday. As a result, the starting lineup for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona was set by way of the NASCAR Rule Book.

Ryan Blaney, who had the best score in NASCAR's Performance Metric Formula, was awarded the pole position, which will not count as an official pole on his career stat sheet. Alex Bowman, who heads into this race as the final driver inside of the Playoffs cutline, will start from the outside of the front row.

Coke Zero Sugar 400 Starting Lineup

Click here for the complete Coke Zero Sugar 400 Starting Lineup

RFK Confident of Chances at Daytona Win, Bowman 'Stressed' About Daytona

There couldn't have been any bigger difference in mood between RFK Racing, which heads into this weekend's race with all three of its cars outside of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs cutline, and Alex Bowman, who is the final driver inside the cutline.

With Daytona International Speedway, the ultimate crapshoot, serving as the final race of the regular season, a win by any Playoff eligible driver, not already locked into the Playoffs, could very well eliminate Bowman.

"It's just stressful, right? And I'm going to stress myself out about whatever our situation ever is," Bowman said in a media scrum on Friday afternoon in the Daytona International Speedway media center.

Bowman told Racing America On SI that he kept his mind off the stress of Saturday night's race with a full schedule of other activities this week.

"Well, it's been a super busy week. Tested Kershaw on Tuesday, so that was a whole day of testing. Wednesday, we had a production day deal at Hendrick, and then yesterday kind of just had a bunch of regular life s--- that I had to do," Bowman laughed. "Yeah, I mean, I think it being busy, as much as I've complained about that all week because I've been like running all over the Earth all week, it's probably a good thing that it was that way. Yeah, took my mind off of it."

While he's nervous that he could end up on the bad side of the unpredictability of Daytona, RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece are bullish in their thoughts that an RFK Racing car will reach victory lane on Saturday night.

"If you're going to try to win this race, I guarantee you're going to have to go through an RFK car to win," Preece, the driver of the team's No. Ford Mustang said during a Friday media availability. "So, I feel like we're in a strong position to get one of our cars in, and good luck to the other ones that are going to have to get through us."

Buescher says while the RFK Racing teammates will do everything they can to place all three of their cars at the front of the field in the closing laps, that it will still be a battle amongst them if they are able to occupy the top-three spots on the final lap.

"You know, ultimately, there's only ever one winner. Every time you come into a superspeedway race and you work with your teammates, you always have the mindset of pushing each other and getting each other as far forward as possible until there are no cars left to pass, and then you work it out amongst yourselves, right," Buescher, who drives the team's No. 17 Ford said. "I still say, there's no doubt in my mind that you come off of Turn 4, and if you're helping each other all day, then all bets are off at that point. Or maybe earlier, I don't know. But it'll be a race."

Playoff Picture

Heading into Saturday night's NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale, 14 drivers have solidified their slot in NASCAR's Playoffs by way of winning races during the 2025 season.

William Byron, the regular-season champion, has two wins this season, but would have been locked in regardless as the winner of the regular-season title. Denny Hamlin (4 wins), Shane van Gisbergen (4 wins), Kyle Larson (3 wins), Christophe Bell (3 wins), Ryan Blaney (1 win), Bubba Wallace (1 win), Austin Cindric (1 win), Chase Briscoe (1 win), Joey Logano (1 win), Chase Elliott (1 win), Ross Chastain (1 win), Josh Berry (1 win), and Austin Dillon (1 win) are also ocked in heading into Saturday night's race.

Two drivers, Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman, head into the Coke Zero Sugar 400 inside the Playoff cutline by way of points, but they're not safe in any definition of the word.

Reddick holds a 29-point lead over Bowman, but with big crashes lurking around every corner at Daytona, as well as the chance at accruing Playoff Points, there's a chance that Bowman, who starts second on Saturday night, can work around Reddick's point total.

Whichever driver of the two ends up with the most points on the season at the end of Saturday night's race will secure their place in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs regardless, but the driver, who doesn't win that battle will be required to hope that a driver not currently in the Playoff field doesn't win the race.

Notable drivers not currently inside the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, who could threaten the Playoff status of Reddick or Bowman include Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Ty Gibbs, AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar.

Coke Zero Sugar 400 Pre-Race Info

The Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway will be televised on NBC and can be streamed on the HBO Max streaming platform, as well as the NBC Sports App and Peacock. The race broadcast will begin at 7:30 PM ET.

The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of Sunday's race. For subscribers of the HBO Max streaming service, NASCAR Driver Cam, which streams live in-car camera footage from every car in the field, will be available for today's race.

The overall race purse, which teams will fight for their portion of in Sunday's race, is a total of $9,797,935.

The race distance is 160 laps around the 2.5-mile superspeedway, which equates to a 400-mile race distance.

The Coke Zero Sugar 400 will be broken up into three Stages. Stage 1 will end at the conclusion of Lap 35. Stage 2 will end at the conclusion of Lap 95. And the race is scheduled to finish at the end of Lap 160, barring an Overtime finish.

The winner of Stages 1 and 2 will be awarded one Playoff Point, and the overall race winner will be awarded five Playoff Points. The Playoff Points will be added to the reseeded point totals if the drivers make it into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, and will be carried through each round of the Playoffs.

This race is the final race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, which means the full 16-driver Playoff field will be finalized upon the conclusion of Saturday night's race.

Harrison Burton, who is not in the field for the event, is the defending winner of this race.