The Daytona 500 is one of a number of "wild card" races on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season schedule, a race that pretty much anybody can win due to the equalizer nature of superspeedway racing.
In 2021, 2022, and 2023, the driver who won the race did not win again later in the year. And in 2021 and 2022, the winner had never previously won a Cup Series race.
On the final lap of Sunday's 67th running of the "Great American Race", Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron avoided a multi-car crash and worked his way from ninth to first place, making him the fifth driver to ever win back-to-back Daytona 500s.
Though it was only race number one of 26 on the regular season schedule, the fact that it was Byron who won gives a pretty strong indicator that all winners, provided they are full-time drivers, will indeed qualify for the 16-driver postseason.
Daytona 500 reduces chance of 2025 playoff "bid stealer"
Since the modern playoff format was introduced in 2014, there has never been a season in which there were more than 16 regular season winners. However, there were exactly 16 in 2022, and there were a total of 19 winners that season.
So having more than 16 winners in a regular season is far from out of the question, in which case there would be more winners than available playoff spots. The 16 playoff spots go to the regular season champion, whether he is a winner or not, and the 15 drivers who rank next highest in wins. The tiebreaker, if needed, becomes points.
But with Byron as the winner of one of NASCAR's "wild card" races, there is less of a chance of that happening, since there is now one less opportunity for an underdog to sneak into the playoffs from well outside of the top 16 in the point standings with an upset victory on a superspeedway.
Byron is a regular championship contender, having now won in six consecutive seasons. And in three straight seasons leading up to 2025, he won at least two regular season races. In other words, he is a playoff regular. He also hasn't missed the Championship 4 since 2022.
Last year, Byron won the Daytona 500 as well, and there ended up being 15 different regular season race winners, though one was removed from the playoffs due to a penalty.
And to the point about upset winners in "wild card" races, one of those winners won at Daytona later in the year, that being Harrison Burton, and he finished the season in last place in total points scored.
These kinds of races open up the door for these kinds of upsets and playoff "bid stealers", and the Daytona 500 was denied exactly that on Sunday.
Will a second winner emerge in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season's second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway? Fox is set to provide live coverage of the Ambetter Health 400, another superspeedway race, beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, February 23. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss any of the action!