Daytona 500 by the numbers: Facts and figures from 2025 NASCAR race

The 2025 Daytona 500 split opinions.

Denny Hamlin, who led until a wreck on the last lap, went on his podcast afterward and announced the current amount of luck involved in NASCAR, especially at Daytona International Speedway, is diminishing his love for the sport. Other drivers and fans chimed in with critiques, too.

But then there’s back-to-back winner William Byron, who, if we had to guess, is having a pretty good week. He defended his skills in the post-race press conference.

“Obviously, it worked out in a fortunate way for us, but it’s not all luck to win twice in a row,” Byron said. “It’s a lot of teamwork and a lot of talking with my spotter and us three working together and making the most of it.”

So we turn to the old cliché to make sense of what happened.

“Numbers don’t lie.”

NASCAR released the official facts and figures behind the 67th running of the Great American Race Thursday. Let’s look at some of the notables.

Did the Daytona 500 break any race records?

• The drivers set a new Daytona record for green flag passes: 16,389.

• The lead changed 56 times, fourth-most in event history and the most since the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022. It was the third straight Daytona 500 with 40 or more lead swaps.

• Byron became the youngest driver ever to win his second Great American Race. At 27 years, two months and 18 days old, he topped Jeff Gordon’s old mark (27 years, six months and 10 days), which had stood since 1999.

• Byron is also the first champion to go back-to-back in the era of the Next Gen car.

• Hendrick Motorsports grabbed its 10th Daytona 500 victory. That broke its tie with Petty Enterprises for the most in race history.

• The Daytona 500 produced the largest purse of all time for a NASCAR race: $30,331,250. That’s an 8% increase from 2024 and almost triple the $11 million the teams will share from the second race of the year in Atlanta.

• Per NASCAR, Daytona 500 commercial slots on Fox sold out “in record time.”

• Sunday’s Daytona 500 drew an average of 6.76 million viewers — 13% more than 2024. As always, it was the most-watched sporting event of the weekend.

• Saturday’s United Rentals 300 Xfinity Series race garnered 1.8 million viewers on the CW. That beat the 2024 showing by 93% (when the race ran Monday night after the Cup Series) and the 2023 audience by 7%. The race aired on FS1 each of those years. 2025 featured the most-watched season opener at Daytona since 2020 and the most-watched Xfinity Series race since 2022 at Talladega.

• Friday’s Fresh From Florida 250 Truck Series audience slumped from 1.06 million spectators on FS1 in 2024 to 1.01 million last week.

• The television audience for Thursday’s Duels grew by 12% on FS1, rising from 1.64 million in 2024 to 1.84 million this year.

• Wednesday’s Cup Series qualifying broadcast found 916,000 viewers on FS1. That represented 12% growth over the 2024 audience of 821,000.

How’d the Daytona 500 gift shops do?

• Trackside retail sales reached their highest point since at least 2014, as far as official records go back.

• Daytona 500 event merchandise was up 12% over 2023. NASCAR compared this year’s numbers to 2023 because 2024’s race was postponed until Monday, giving fans an extra day to purchase goods.

Did you win (or lose) any money betting on the Daytona 500?

• Betting volume on the Daytona 500 increased by as much as 40% year over year on sportsbook apps. The most popular states by betting volume were New York, North Carolina and Ohio.

• Live betting after the green flag accounted for almost 25% of all bets, which was up from 7% in 2024.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona 500 records and ratings: 2025 NASCAR race by the numbers