DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The Daytona 500 starting lineup is officially set after single-car qualifying on Wednesday and two relatively chaotic Duel races on Thursday night.
Chase Briscoe will lead the field to the green flag after winning the pole in single-car qualifying. Austin Cindric will join him on the front row. Cindric, the 2022 Daytona 500 winner, had the second-fastest time in qualifying. He also won Thursday night's second Duel race after a wreck brought out the caution on the final lap.
Photo credit: NASCAR
"We'd much rather win the race, but it's neat regardless," Briscoe said after winning the pole on Wednesday. "Even this whole off-season, a lot of the emphasis at JGR has been to qualify better at superspeedways. They felt like that was the biggest area where they lacked.
"For them to be able to come here after qualifying 25th average last year, to come here and have three cars in the top 10, to have one on the pole, is just a testament to everybody there, just the amount of effort and prep work they put in."
The second row of the starting lineup will feature two drivers who experienced wildly different Duel race finishes. Bubba Wallace will start third after winning Duel No. 1. Erik Jones will start fourth. Jones was initially the unofficial winner of Duel No. 2, but replay showed that he was behind Cindric at the time of the caution.
The top 15 of the starting lineup features multiple Daytona 500 winners. Reigning Daytona 500 champion William Byron will line up on the third row while three-time winner Denny Hamlin will line up on the fourth row. 2015 Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano will be on the fifth row while 2018 Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon will be on the eighth row.
Three other Daytona 500 winners will be in the starting lineup on Sunday. They will just be further back in the field. 2021 winner Michael McDowell will line up 25th. 2023 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will line up 31st. Two-time Daytona 500 winner Jimmie Johnson will line up 40th.
One key detail for the lineup will be the drivers who will have to drop to the rear of the field at the start of the race.
Several were involved in crashes, so they will have to go to backup cars for Sunday's race. This includes Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, Shane van Gisbergen, Justin Haley, Brad Keselowski, Riley Herbst, and Ty Gibbs.
Helio Castroneves was involved in a crash as well, but the team will repair his car. The four-time Indy 500 champion was already set to start 41st after using the Open Exemption Provisional to qualify for the race.