By going from ninth to first place on the final lap in February 2025, Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron became just the 13th driver to win the Daytona 500 multiple times.
Of the first 12 drivers to pull it off, only four had won the "Great American Race" in back-to-back years. With wins in 2024 and 2025, Byron became the fifth.
Just six drivers have won the race more than twice. But while three of those six drivers won the race in back-to-back years at some point, nobody has ever won it three years in a row.
Seven-time winner Richard Petty finished seventh in 1975 after winning it in 1973 and 1974, four-time winner Cale Yarborough was knocked out with an engine issue in 1985 after winning it in 1983 and 1984, and three-time winner Denny Hamlin finished fifth in 2021 after winning it in 2020 and 2021.
Two-time winner Sterling Marlin was knocked out with an engine issue in 1996 after winning it in 1994 and 1995.
William Byron not favored to win third straight Daytona 500
At this point, Byron theoretically has a great chance to become the first driver to win the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked Daytona International Speedway three years in a row, because he's already checked the box twice. In other words, he no longer needs three in a row to make it three in a row; he simply needs one more.
But as everybody knows, sometimes it's more about being at the right place at the right time than it is about anything else, and that approach certainly favored Byron on the final lap in 2025. He's the first to admit it.
Having said that, it's clear that he is still one of the best superspeedway drivers in the Cup Series. He got his first career win in Daytona's summer race in August 2020, and he has won twice at Atlanta Motor Speedway since it was reconfigured into a superspeedway, giving him five wins in such races – and he only turned 28 years old this past weekend.
At DraftKings Sportsbook, however, he is not one of the three drivers listed as way-too-early co-favorites to win the race this coming February.
Byron is listed fourth at +1200, behind Team Penske teammates Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney at +1000.
Cindric won the race in 2022, Logano won it in 2015, and Blaney is a two-time runner-up who has also been immensely successful overall in superspeedway racing, most recently winning this past season's summer Daytona race to put him at five career drafting track wins.
Full Daytona 500 odds can be found here and are always subject to change.
Can Byron beat the odds and become the first driver to pull off a Daytona 500 three-peat in what is soon to become the race's 68-year history? Fox is set to provide live coverage from Daytona International Speedway starting at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 15, 2026.