who won daytona 500

Tyler Reddick won the 2026 Daytona 500, scoring his first victory in NASCAR’s biggest race and the first Daytona 500 win for 23XI Racing and co-owner Michael Jordan.
Who Won the Daytona 500?
Quick Scoop 🏁
- Winner: Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing, Toyota)
- Race: 2026 Daytona 500, 68th running of the event
- Date & place: February 15, 2026, Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida
- Key moment: Reddick made a last-lap pass on Chase Elliott in a chaotic finish with multiple wrecks to take the checkered flag.
How Tyler Reddick Won
On the final lap, the field shredded into chaos with two separate wrecks as drivers made desperate moves for position. In the middle of that chaos, Tyler Reddick timed his run perfectly, catching and passing Chase Elliott on the frontstretch just before the finish line.
That move gave Reddick:
- His first Daytona 500 victory.
- The ninth Cup Series win of his career.
- His first Cup win since 2024 (Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead).
Chase Elliott, NASCAR’s most popular driver for years running, was right in the middle of the dramatic last-lap pileup that unfolded as Reddick slipped by for the win.
Top Finishers and Standouts
According to race reports and box scores, the top of the finishing order looked like this:
- 1st: Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing) – race winner, last-lap pass
- 2nd: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – charged through the chaos to grab a strong finish
- 3rd: Joey Logano – survived the late drama for a podium
- 4th: Chase Elliott – led late but lost the win in the final sprint
- 5th: Brad Keselowski – rounded out the top five
Rounding out the top ten were Zane Smith, Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, Josh Berry, and Bubba Wallace, who all managed to stay in contention through the late-race carnage.
Why This Win Is a Big Deal
For Tyler Reddick, this Daytona 500 win is a career-defining breakthrough. He was already a two-time Xfinity Series champion (2018, 2019), but the Daytona 500 is the race every Cup driver wants on their resume.
For 23XI Racing and Michael Jordan, it’s a historic milestone:
- First Daytona 500 win for the team.
- A massive statement that this relatively young organization can beat NASCAR’s traditional powerhouses on the sport’s biggest stage.
Media coverage has highlighted the storybook angle: Jordan, a global sports icon, celebrating in Victory Lane with Reddick after that wild last-lap pass.
Recent Daytona 500 Winners (Context)
To give you some quick recent context around “who won Daytona 500” as a trending search, here’s how the last couple of years have gone:
- 2025: William Byron won his second straight Daytona 500 in another wild, crash-filled finish.
- 2026: Tyler Reddick took the win with the dramatic last-lap pass for 23XI Racing.
These back-to-back dramatic endings are a big reason “who won Daytona 500” keeps spiking as a trending topic every February.
SEO-style Note
- Focus keyword used: who won daytona 500 (answer: Tyler Reddick, 2026 edition).
- Latest news hook: Last-lap chaos, Jordan’s first Daytona 500 as an owner, and Reddick’s breakthrough win keep this race at the center of NASCAR conversation.
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