DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – With 20 different drivers needing to win the 2025 regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway to make the playoffs, desperation was going to be at an all-time high. And as one would expect, it came down to the wire, with the winner not being clear until the checkered flag.
During an eight-lap sprint to the finish, many of those 20 drivers had a legitimate chance of winning their way into the postseason. Erik Jones and Justin Haley traded the lead back and forth. Kyle Larson shoved Jones out of the way with five laps to go to be a player. Enter Cole Custer, who was getting pushed by Ryan Blaney (already locked into the playoffs) with Daniel Suarez in tow.
Custer had the advantage at the white flag, receiving a shove from Blaney. Haley re-took the lead down the backstretch and made an evasive block on the No. 41 car. Custer countered with a move low, creating a third lane and opening up the top for Blaney. The No. 12 Ford scooted by and was in control coming to the checkered flag.
“I could have worked harder to not let [Haley] get clear,” Custer said. “I was so focused on staying with [Blaney] because I knew he was going to have the momentum coming to the start/finish line at the end of the race. I knew that the top was probably going to win out, so I wanted to stay with him. [Haley] getting clear was what cost us the race. I wish I combated that a little bit more.”
Custer’s chance of winning wasn’t over. Chris Buescher pushed the No. 41 car back alongside Blaney off Turn 4. The two drivers broke apart down the frontstretch, and Blaney blocked the middle led by Haley. That enable Suarez to lead the top, edging ahead of Haley and Custer but .031 seconds short of Blaney in a thrilling four-wide photo finish. The top four drivers were separated by .049 seconds, the closest known top four finishers in NASCAR history, according to NASCAR Insights.
WHERE DID HE COME FROM?!
RYAN BLANEY WINS IN A THRILLING LAST LAP AT DAYTONA! pic.twitter.com/H6IW6dtclh
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 24, 2025
Jones rallied from dropping outside the top 20 in the final five laps to finish fifth. But with winning being the only option for the rest of the top five drivers at Daytona, the good finishes were all for naught.
“It was a pretty good rally, but we needed a little bit more at the end,” Suarez said of his runner-up finish. “Proud of the effort, we just needed a little bit more to get side by side with [Blaney]. Maybe one more lap and we were going to get there, but I guess we’ll never know.”
Haley was more joyful with a third-place effort, as it was his first top five since the inaugural Chicago Street Course in 2023 (80 starts ago). Though he took command of the lead with a half-lap remaining, he knew it was going to be hard to hold off the field.
“It was a weird situation because [Buescher] was pushing me and [Kyle Larson] who was an alliance car was pushing [Preece], so I don’t think either of us wanted to push each other to the win,” Haley said of the closing laps. “We tried our best. With the season we’ve had, just trying to get it back on the rails and I thought we were close there. Just didn’t pan out.”
Custer placed fourth, tallying his first top five at the Cup level since winning at Kentucky Speedway more than five years ago. Leading at the white flag, he’s going to replay the finish countless times and wonder what he could have done differently to be the victor.
“At the end of the day, we had a shot to win and that’s all you can really ask for at these [superspeedway] races,” Custer added. “You’re going to look back and wish you did something different, but all you can do is hope to be up there and have a shot at it and make the move that you’re dealt with.”
Jones would have needed the race to go an extra lap or two in order to have a realistic shot. He rallied to fifth after getting shuffled out of the lead, but had little pathway to get back to the front.
“It seemed like with all the speedway races in the past, if you get stuck back there, it’s hard to do much,” Jones said. “I was glad that the third lane finally rolled; it’s never rolled well. It’s just a bummer — and hate that it didn’t work out a little better for us. We were in a good position and it just didn’t work out.
“I feel like I’ve done the right things a lot of times in a row here and it just hasn’t worked out. We’ve been fortunate and won some races here, but I would like for it to work out again.”
Blaney played spoiler to all the drivers throwing Hail Mary’s. The No. 12 car went from 13th to the lead in the final two laps to win his second race at the World Center of Racing (August 2021).
Blaney recalled of the finish: “[Haley] blocked the top, which he should have, and then he blocked Cole all the way down, and now I’m like, ‘well, I’m leading the top now,’ and Daniel gave me a good push and was able to kind of play the middle top lane to sneak it out.
“We took a big run to the top and it was open and no one blocked it, and we were able to just carry big speed, and I thought our cars were really fast. I thought the Fords were super-fast. It was nice it was able to show it a little bit there at the end.”
While the 16 playoff drivers will duke it out to advance to the Round of 12, the remainder of the field will be chasing checkered flags. In 2022, the opening round of the postseason was swept by non-playoff competitors.