Threats of climate have been top-of-mind for NASCAR officers coming into Sunday’s Daytona 500. Sufficient that Friday, they introduced an hour earlier begin time for the race. Whereas that allowed them to see the inexperienced flag wave at Daytona Worldwide Speedway, the storms additionally did not wish to miss the motion, arriving shortly after. Showers, mixed with a excessive wind warning all through the day have red-flagged the race till issues dry up.
Main the sector to the inexperienced flag was Chase Briscoe, for Toyota’s first pole ever within the NASCAR’s season-opener. From there, the sector shortly unfold out three extensive with the Penske drivers forming the skin line. Carson Hocevar misplaced the draft because of a reported gas stress situation, however in any other case, the race was underway with out incident.
Pole sitter Chase Briscoe, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with the crew
Picture by: Sean Gardner / Getty Photographs
Raindrops started falling, first detected in Flip 2, as a northern band of storms dropped down in direction of Daytona Seashore, forcing NASCAR to halt the race after solely 11 of 200 laps, round 2:20 pm EST. Attributable to a 2023 summer season race at Daytona the place a lot of the area wrecked as a sudden bathe appeared, the sanctioning physique has been very cautious and reacts swiftly to any rain when competing at these quick superspeedways.
In 2024, the Daytona 500 was postponed to Monday because of rain showers. Fortunately, in line with the radar, Sunday’s climate may transfer by means of in time for the 67th working of the Daytona 500 to finish below the lights later tonight.
On the time of the purple flag, defending 500 winner William Byron was main the way in which. The remainder of the working top-five is as follows: Austin Cindric in second, Ty Dillon third, Chase Briscoe fourth, and Joey Logano fifth.
Within the meantime, Motorsport.com has loads of rain delay studying for you:
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