Team Penske's Daytona 500 domination ends in frustration

​Austin Cindric led a dominant day for Team Penske in the Daytona but was one of the most frustrated after being among those wrecked in the closing laps.

Cindric was the leader at the white flag, controlling the lanes with Denny Hamlin on the bottom and Cole Custer on the outside. The race stayed green – and Cindric still held control – as Riley Herbst went sent out of shape and slid through the frontstretch grass. But Herbst kept his car going, and no one else was involved.

The race was lost down the backstretch when Hamlin made a move around Cindric to the outside. Then there was contact at the front of the field that collected Hamlin, Cindric, and others that cleared the way for William Byron to get through the carnage and take the victory.

“Frustration,” said Cindric when asked what he was feeling. “You’re taking the white as the leader. I felt like I executed all the restarts the right way and really that whole third stage. I didn’t get wrecked out of the lead this time, so that was cool, but it still doesn’t make it feel any better.

“Obviously, I don’t even know where we finished, but it was still a decent points weekend and an incredible showing by our team for the entirety of Speedweeks. It’s just a shame we couldn’t get this Discount Tire Ford Mustang in Victory Lane.”

Cindric led a race-high 59 laps. He finished eighth.

Joey Logano finished 35th after leading 43 laps. Logano’s night ended after contact with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. with 15 laps to go.

Logano was in the middle lane and tried to squeeze even lower underneath Stenhouse. The two made contact, Logano also made contact with Kyle Busch, who was to his inside, and then turned Stenhouse to start the multi-car wreck.

“From my perspective, I felt like to win the race I had to get to the second row in my line there,” Logano said. “I was in third and needed to get to second. I saw the opportunity to drop down and get underneath the (No.) 47 and have the (No.) 4, another Ford, behind me. Then the 47 threw a late block there. I checked up for it and it looked like he was going to go back up and grab the top lane so I went back in to try and close the gap again but he kept coming down.

“I am checking up but at that point the checkup has already happened behind me and everybody is all over each other. I can’t get out of it and then we made contact. It is unfortunate. We had a good Shell Pennzoil Mustang. We had a good car but just couldn’t get it done.”

The three Team Penske drivers combined to lead 125 laps. Ryan Blaney was the highest finishing driver for the organization in seventh place after leading 23 laps.

Blaney suffered damage in the wreck Logano started with Stenhouse. The No. 12 Ford was hit in the right rear by Stenhouse, which sent Blaney spinning across the backstretch and hitting the outside wall, but the team was able to repair the car enough to keep Blaney in contention.

On the last lap, Blaney was running 16th, but he missed the crash on the backstretch to come away with a top 10 finish.

“Honestly, we did a good job fixing it after we got turned on the backstretch off of Turn 2 there and fixed it the best they could,” Blaney said. “We rode around and missed the first big wreck and kind of went racing the second one, and I went to the bottom, and kind of got to the apron and was able to miss a lot of that junk and wound up seventh.

“It was a good recovery. We did a really good job today just got hit in the right rear there and spun around and hurt us a little bit. It was a good finish at least.”