NASCAR Cup Daytona: Buescher wins, Wallace takes final playoff spot

The race was despatched right into a two-lap additional time following a horrific crash involving Ryan Preece that resulted within the Stewart-Haas driver being despatched to hospital, with Kevin Harvick within the lead on his remaining outing on the superspeedway.

However Harvick had Buescher and RFK team-mate Brad Keselowski behind him, and a push from the 2012 Cup champion moved Buescher forward of Harvick shortly after the restart. He then held off Keselowski by 0.098 seconds on the checkered flag to assert his third win previously 5 races.

It’s the primary 1-2 end for RFK Racing for the reason that 2014 season and Buescher will enter the 2023 playoff discipline because the fourth seed.

The 30-year-old mentioned the end result was “as a lot Brad’s win as ours proper there”.

“That was the suitable assist, aggressive, sticking with us,” he mentioned.

”I used to be ready for him to do one thing there coming to the end. I figured we’d be facet by facet. Appeared prefer it stalled out somewhat behind there.

“Simply so grateful for Brad for all these pushes on the proper time. Discovered one another right here and there all through the race, misplaced one another, and bought again on when it counted.”

Aric Almirola ended up third forward of Chase Elliott, for whom fourth place was not sufficient to proceed his unbroken streak of playoff appearances.

Joey Logano rounded out the highest 5 forward of Alex Bowman and Kyle Busch, as Harvick dropped to ninth behind William Byron. Corey LaJoie accomplished the highest 10.

A repeat winner at Daytona meant Bubba Wallace clinched the sixteenth and remaining spot within the playoffs primarily based on factors and due to his twelfth place end.

Becoming a member of Buescher and Wallace within the playoffs are common season champion Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Byron, Christopher Bell, Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Harvick, Busch, Ross Chastain, Logano, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

A number of automobiles had been eradicated throughout the ‘Large One’ on the ultimate lap of Stage 2. After Truex had crushed Bell in a caution-free Stage 1, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver turned Ty Gibbs into chief Blaney – who bought changed into the skin wall to set off the pileup that collected greater than 16 automobiles.

Keselowski due to this fact inherited the Stage 2 win, however did not emerge as a think about Stage 3 till after the ultimate spherical of inexperienced flag stops as Harvick led the sphere with 4 laps to go.

That was when Preece, operating in the midst of the pack, was turned by Erik Jones and his automotive barrel-rolled a number of instances within the grass down the backstretch earlier than it got here to a cease on its wheels.

It took a number of minutes however Preece emerged from the automotive on his personal ft. He was transported to the infield care centre on a stretcher for precautionary causes, then taken by ambulance to Halifax Medical Middle for additional analysis.

Stewart-Haas Racing’s vp of competitors, Greg Zipadelli, mentioned that Preece was “alert however shaken up” earlier than being taken to the hospital.

NASCAR Cup Daytona Race Outcomes