Ryan Blaney wins at Daytona; Bowman and Reddick advance to Playoffs

Ryan Blaney won the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway Saturday evening. It was his second victory this season and his 15th career win in the series.

“It’s nice to be back,” Blaney said. “This is such a cool Victory Lane, looking up and seeing the World Center of Racing. It’s something I’ll never forget when we won here in ‘21. It’s just a cool place to be, so it’s really special. 

“When you can win at Daytona, Talladega, you never know what’s gonna happen at these places and you just try to do the best job you can and we did that tonight and was in a spot to win and was able to hang on.”

It was a typically chaotic race with 44 lead changes among 19 drivers and eight cautions for 39 laps.

Daniel Suárez finished second and was asked if there was anything he could have done differently to win the race.

“I don’t know about the last few laps, but maybe 40 laps before the end,” he said. “I felt like we didn’t set up ourselves as good as we wanted to be, but that’s not an excuse. The 12 [Blaney] was back there with us and he was able to make it to the front. Definitely probably the fastest superspeedway car we have had in a few years.”

Justin Haley, Cole Custer, and Erik Jones rounded out the top five at Daytona. Kyle Larson, Chris Buescher, Ty Gibbs, Josh Berry and Chase Elliott completed the top 10 in the finishing order

Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman claimed the final two spots in the playoffs, which begin next weekend at Darlington Raceway.

NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Drivers

 1. Kyle Larson (2,032 points)
 2. William Byron (2,032 points)
 3. Denny Hamlin (2,029 points)
 4. Ryan Blaney (2,026 points)
 5. Christopher Bell (2,023 points)
 6. Shane van Gisbergen (2,022 points)
 7. Chase Elliott (2,013 points)
 8. Chase Briscoe (2,010 points)
 9. Bubba Wallace (2,008 points)
 10. Austin Cindric (2,008 points)
 11. Ross Chastain (2,007 points)
 12. Joey Logano (2,007 points)
 13. Josh Berry (2,006 points)
 14. Tyler Reddick (2,006 points)
 15. Austin Dillon (2,005 points)
 16. Alex Bowman (2,002 points)