AJ Allmendinger knows what’s at stake in Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Allmendinger, 181 points below the playoff cutline, has to win to qualify for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
It’s that simple for Allmendinger but doing that at a superspeedway like Daytona is no simple task. On3 spoke with Allmendinger ahead of Saturday’s race, and the Kaulig Racing driver said that he’s confident in his No. 16 CELSIUS Chevrolet’s ability to be there at the end. He believes he has a fast race car, he just needs to avoid the inevitable “big one” and put himself in position to make a charge towards the front in Stage 3.
AJ Allmendinger opens up about regular season finale at Daytona
“I guess the positive way to look at it is we don’t have to worry about anything besides winning. We don’t have to worry about points, we don’t have worry about stages, if we’re not up front at the end of the stages. The focus is just winning,” Allmendinger said. “I’m confident we’re going to have a fast CELSIUS Chevy every time we come to these superspeedway races. Kaulig Racing and with the help of ECR horsepower — we have a fast car. This race is hectic and it’s chaotic… [there’s] about 20 or 22 guys in desperation mode. There’s really only two of them that probably got to be a little careful and then there’s 14 that don’t have to worry about anything because they’re already locked in.
“We’re just going to go out there and try to be there at the end. That’s the first thing is you’ve got to be there at the end of this race. You got to be aggressive at times, but you got to do it in the right scenarios and with 15 or 20 laps to go, you got to be full tilt and leave everything out there. So, I think the biggest thing about this race is the way these cars draft now, you just got to be up front a lot earlier than you did in the past with the old cars. I would say kind of in that third stage, you got to get up to the front and try to do everything you can to stay there.”
Allmendinger has shown to fast at Daytona in recent years. He finished sixth in both the 2023 and 2024 Daytona 500, and third in the 2018 Coke Zero Sugar 400. But again, the only thing that matters is getting to Victory Lane.
AJ Allmendinger assesses 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season
Allmendinger last won in 2023 at the Charlotte ROVAL. He is always a threat to win on road courses, something he failed to do this season. Allmendinger has tallied just one top 10 this season in five road course starts, a P6 result in the Chicago Street Race.
Allmendinger admitted they were off this year at road courses, which disappointed him. At the same time, he’s been fast on ovals, picking up top 10s at tracks such as Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway. Compared to last season, when Kaulig struggled with consistency, 2025 has been a big step forward overall, Allmendinger said.
“If you kind of look at where our program was last year, the cars were kind of low 30s in points. We had some good runs last year. Daniel Hemric had some good runs, I had some good runs at times,” Allmendinger said. “Looking at the whole totality of this year, our speed is a lot better. We’re building a lot faster race cars, I think we’re overall a lot more competitive than last year. The thing that stands out and there’s a lot of teams that can say this, but we’ve had a lot of speed at times and probably haven’t gotten the results for that. There’s been three or four races where one thing or another happened, and we just haven’t gotten that finish. A team like ours, that’s disappointing when you have fast race cars because sometimes there’s gonna be times when you struggle.
“As a whole, I’m happy with where we’re at speed wise. We’re always trying to improve and we know we have a good ways to go to get to the Hendrick and Gibbs consistently, but we’ve shown we can run there. Our road course — we’ve been off a little bit. I’ve got to be better, this tire has thrown me off a little bit, so that’s been a little disappointing just our road course results. Other than that, I’ve been happy with what we’ve done and what the future is for our race team.”
AJ Allmendinger and CELSIUS: A winning partnership
One of the constants throughout Allmendinger’s tenure with Kaulig has been the presence of CELSIUS. It has served as the official energy drink sponsor of Kaulig since 2021, a partnership which Allmendinger said has been enjoyable for him. Allmendinger delivered CELSIUS a Cup win in 2023 at the Charlotte ROVAL; he would like to do it again Saturday at Daytona.
“It’s just been a great partnership,” Allmendinger said. “You can say seven years they’ve been a part of the race team, I remember walking into the shop in 2019 and this just shows to me how CELSIUS has grown, not just in North America, but we’ve seen throughout the world with like their partnership with Ferrari and just different sports and different mega athletes. I remember walking into the shop in 2019 and just seeing CELSIUS inside the race shop and to be quite honest, I was like I’ve never seen this before. To see where the partnership has grown, to be able to be in Victory Lane with them a few different times, get them a Cup win (Charlotte ROVAL, 2023) — it’s been huge, and their continued belief in me to associate and be a part of Kaulig Racing, but also be on the 16 car and have our partnership together, I really enjoy it.
“The CELSIUS product is something I use on a daily basis. That’s what I love about it is I don’t have to fake it… This is [something] that I literally will use on the golf course, working out, here at the racetrack — it’s essential to my life. It’s been great and as I said about my career, I hope this partnership keeps continuing and we keep growing together.”
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