UPDATE: Ryan Preece (P2) and Joey Logano (P5) have been disqualified from Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 after failing post-race inspection.
After originally being credited with a career-best second-place finish, Preece was disqualified for having too many spoiler shims on the rear-end of his No. 60 CELSIUS Ford Mustang Dark Horse. Logano, on the other hand, was disqualified for missing a spoiler bolt on the rear-end of his No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse.
Austin Cindric has passed technical inspection and is the winner of the Jack Link’s 500.
Kyle Larson will be credited with a second-place finish, with his teammate William Byron just behind him in third place. Noah Gragson will now be credited for a top-five with Front Row Motorsports, in fourth, with Chase Elliott rounding out the top five.
Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman, Bubba Wallace, Daniel Suarez, and Austin Dillon will complete the top-10.
During his short tenure in the NASCAR Cup Series, Austin Cindric has developed into a superspeedway savant, and although the wins hadn’t necessarily followed suit, Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 was a different story.
The Mooresville, North Carolina-native captured the victory in Sunday’s 500-mile event at Talladega Superspeedway by the smallest of margins, beating Ryan Preece to the start-finish line by 0.022 seconds, in an incredible photo finish.
During the closing laps of the event, Cindric had a fantastic push from 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson which propelled him out in front of the pack on multiple occasions, and in the end, bettered the push that Preece got, which came from another Hendrick Motorsports driver, William Byron.
On the final lap, as the field quickly approached the lapped cars of Kyle Busch and Josh Berry, Cindric was able to sniff a draft off the cars coming to the checkered, which may have been enough to just put him in front of the No. 60.
“It takes everything, and we’ve had so many races here and you’ve got to have a little bit more,” said Cindric. “I’m just so proud of everybody on this race team. Team Penske, the entire shop deserves wins at these racetracks with how fast our race cars are, and I’m just so proud to be able to win for John Menard and the Menards team – to get this yellow car in Victory Lane and get in the playoffs.”
In a shocking turn of events for a NASCAR Cup Series event at Talladega Superspeedway, the event went the entire final stage without a caution for an on-track incident, running 62 laps to the finish under green — the most since 2022.
“You’re waiting for it to go wrong, but you’ve got to stay in the zone,” Cindric said about the day. “There are so many times at the end, I was just focused on the feedback Doug Campbell was giving me and what I knew about our car and maybe other cars I observed throughout the field today, so just an absolutely fantastic job by everybody involved.”
It’s the third NASCAR Cup Series victory for Austin Cindric — joining a list of events that includes the 2022 DAYTONA 500 and the 2024 event at WWT Raceway — and the 103rd win for the No. 2 at NASCAR’s top-level.
Ryan Preece, in his second superspeedway event with RFK Racing, managed to keep all the wheels on the ground and finish a career-best second-place in the No. 60 CELSIUS Ford Mustang.
Kyle Larson, in third, earned his best-ever result in the NASCAR Cup Series at Talladega Superspeedway, and his second consecutive top-five result at the 2.66-mile superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama.
RACE RESULTS: 2025 NCS Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway
Two-time DAYTONA 500 winner William Byron finished fourth, continuing an incredible streak of finishes at Talladega, while Joey Logano rounded out the top five, getting his first top-five result of 2025.
Noah Gragson was the highest finishing entry from Front Row Motorsports in sixth, with Chevrolet drivers Chase Elliott, Carson Hocevar, and Alex Bowman finishing seventh, eighth, and ninth. Bubba Wallace completed the top-10.
Ty Gibbs, who led a race-high 32 laps in the final stage of Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500, got shuffled away from the lead after the cycle of green-flag pit stops, when Ross Chastain made an aggressive block on the oncoming Toyota pack to slow their progress, keeping them all outside the top-20.
The race featured a total of 67 lead changes, amongst 23 drivers — meaning more drivers led laps in Sunday’s event than did not.
William Byron, earning another top-five result, continues to lead the NASCAR Cup Series point standings by 32 markers over Kyle Larson. Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Christopher Bell round out the top five.
Bell, driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry, lost two spots in standings after an early crash that saw the Joe Gibbs Racing driver hit the inside wall head-on, and relegate him to a 37th-place finish.
The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Texas Motor Speedway next weekend to kick off the month of May, with the track’s only race weekend of 2025. Coverage of the Würth 400 Presented by LIQUI MOLY will take place on Sunday, May 4 at 3:30 PM ET on FS1, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
