One of NASCAR's best road course drivers won the first Cup Series race run on the circuit at Daytona International Speedway.
Chase Elliott dominated large chunks of the Go Bowling 235 on Sunday to extend his road course streak to three. He won Stage 1 before again jetting ahead of the field midway through Stage 3. He would have won by more than 10 seconds had Kyle Busch not caused a caution with six laps to go. Elliott held off Denny Hamlin after the restart and happily settled for a narrower victory than the blowout for which he had been on pace.
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Behind Elliott and Hamlin, the top five was rounded out by Martin Truex Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Chris Buescher. Busch did not finish amid several vehicle issues — he had a flat tire, brake failure and a crash over the course of the race, with the last incident putting his frustrating afternoon to an official end.
Below is additional information about Elliott's win on Daytona's road course, including the full finishing order:
Who won the NASCAR race yesterday?
Chase Elliott won Sunday's Go Bowling 235 and moved into fourth place in the Cup Series point standings.
The race was mostly tepid. Few drivers made aggressive moves and there were no significant multicar wrecks. That said, Elliott did have to handle the adversity of a late restart.
Elliott said he expected something to come up when he held a huge lead in the final laps.
"To me, [it] was not when, but how many green-white-checkers we were going to have to do in a row and being better at executing those," Elliott told reporters. "Any win at Daytona is special. (Crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) and I were joking that we had to change it to a road course to win at Daytona. … Just a great day."
Woo, what a finish!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 16, 2020
Three road course wins in a row for @chaseelliott 🏁 pic.twitter.com/GKXIdrqDhO
Hamlin made sure not to give up from his trailing position, knowing Elliott might falter under his pressure.
"We were at least keeping him honest there to make him push his car and earn the victory,” Hamlin said.
Denny Hamlin talks about the lack of chaos at the Daytona road course despite no practice and the prerace meeting among the drivers on the front two rows for the start: pic.twitter.com/az6Q1zoug4
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) August 17, 2020
NASCAR results at Daytona
Among the familiar names at the top of the Daytona results was newcomer Kaz Grala, who finished seventh in his first Cup Series start. He replaced Austin Dillon, who was out after reporting a positive COVID-19 test.
Below is the full finishing order of the race:
Pos. | Driver |
1 | Chase Elliott |
2 | Denny Hamlin |
3 | Martin Truex Jr. |
4 | Jimmie Johnson |
5 | Chris Buescher |
6 | Clint Bowyer |
7 | Kaz Grala |
8 | William Byron |
9 | Joey Logano |
10 | Michael McDowell |
11 | Erik Jones |
12 | Alex Bowman |
13 | Brad Keselowski |
14 | Kurt Busch |
15 | Matt DiBenedetto |
16 | Ricky Stenhouse |
17 | Kevin Harvick |
18 | Tyler Reddick |
19 | Ryan Newman |
20 | Ty Dillon |
21 | Christopher Bell |
22 | Cole Custer |
23 | Ryan Preece |
24 | Aric Almirola |
25 | Bubba Wallace |
26 | Matt Kenseth |
27 | Daniel Suárez |
28 | Brennan Poole |
29 | Timmy Hill |
30 | James Davison |
31 | Ryan Blaney |
32 | Corey LaJoie |
33 | Quin Houff |
34 | J.J. Yeley |
35 | John Hunter Nemechek |
36 | Garrett Smithley |
37 | Kyle Busch |
38 | Stanton Barrett |
39 | Brendan Gaughan |