NASCAR Daytona 500: Racing Insights predicts Kyle Busch winner, complete order of finish

It’s finally here. This Sunday, the 67th running of the Daytona 500 gets underway and Kyle Busch is projected to lift the Harley J. Earl Trophy as the winner, according to Racing Insights.

Busch, the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, is the projected winner based on an “advanced statistical formula” which “includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results.”

The 39-year-old Busch is making his 20th start in the Great American Race. Among active full-time Cup drivers, Busch has the most Daytona 500 starts without a win. Oh, and there’s also that winless streak. Busch last got to Victory Lane at World Wide Technology Raceway on June 4, 2023 — 57 races ago. A Daytona 500 victory to snap a career-long winless streak would be storybook.

Storybook is exactly the word to describe Dale Earnhardt‘s first Daytona 500 win in 1998 — his 20th attempt. Wouldn’t you know it, Earnhardt’s historic victory snapped a 59-race winless streak. Busch finds himself in nearly the exact same situation 27 years later.

“Twenty years of trying,” Busch said this week, via Reid Spencer of NASCAR.com. “There was another storied racer of the past that won on his 20th try and that was a pretty big deal. He was a former RCR driver as well, so it’d certainly be nice to win that race and do it with RCR in the No. 8 Zone Chevrolet. So that would be pretty cool.”

Racing Insights predicts full order of finish for Daytona 500

Beyond Busch, Racing Insights has projected the full order of finish.

Projected Finish	Car Number	Driver
1	8	Kyle Busch
2	20	Christopher Bell
3	24	William Byron
4	17	Chris Buescher
5	48	Alex Bowman
6	23	Bubba Wallace
7	9	Chase Elliott
8	12	Ryan Blaney
9	22	Joey Logano
10	2	Austin Cindric
11	5	Kyle Larson
12	1	Ross Chastain
13	6	Brad Keselowski
14	11	Denny Hamlin
15	56	Martin Truex Jr.
16	99	Daniel Suárez
17	16	AJ Allmendinger
18	19	Chase Briscoe
19	01	Corey LaJoie
20	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
21	45	Tyler Reddick
22	51	Cody Ware
23	38	Zane Smith
24	43	Erik Jones
25	4	Noah Gragson
26	54	Ty Gibbs
27	71	Michael McDowell
28	34	Todd Gilliland
29	42	John Hunter Nemechek
30	7	Justin Haley
31	77	Carson Hocevar
32	21	Josh Berry
33	60	Ryan Preece
34	3	Austin Dillon
35	10	Ty Dillon
36	88	Shane van Gisbergen
37	41	Cole Custer
38	84	Jimmie Johnson
39	35	Riley Herbst
40	40	Justin Allgaier
41	91	Hélio Castroneves

Green flag for the Daytona 500 is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX.