Stenhouse stands above Keselowski and Byron in 3-wide finish at Talladega
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. stood tall as the winner in a three-wide finish of survival in the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Stenhouse won Sunday and snapped a 65-race winless streak in the NASCAR Cup Series, dating back to last year’s Daytona 500. He beat Brad Keselowski by 0.006 seconds and William Byron by 0.027 seconds.
Stenhouse set off on the outside lane and Keselowski set off on the inside lane to start overtime and stayed that way until turn three on the final lap when Keselowski cleared Stenhouse.
However, Keselowski didn’t jump up to block, opening the door for Stenhouse to rally back with a huge push from William Byron exiting turn four and into the tri-oval.
Exiting the tri-oval, Byron had enough momentum that he tried going for the win himself but Stenhouse held on by just enough to get his first win of the 2024 Cup Series season.
“This team has put a lot of hard work in. Obviously we haven’t won since the 500 in ’23. It’s been an up-and-down season. It was a lot of hard work this season just trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew that this track is one of ours to come get. So for all of our Southern Mississippi people, appreciate you all coming. This means a lot, winning here,” Stenhouse said.
Stenhouse now has four wins in his Cup career. He is now tied with 16 drivers on the all-time wins list.1
Behind Stenhouse was Brad Keselowski. Keselowski defended not throwing a block on Stenhouse when he had a run on the outside lane.
“I knew they were gonna have a really big run and that the 24 was really tight to him and I was just gonna get split, so I felt like I made the right move. But there’s only so much you can do when you’re outnumbered,” he said. “I just needed a half a foot, I guess. I got a really good push from the 5 down the frontstretch, but just wasn’t quite enough.”
In the end, Keselowski earned his fourth second-place finish and ninth Top-5 finish of the season.
The owner-driver of RFK Racing is one Top-5 away from earning double-digit Top-5s for the first time since 2021, when he earned 10 Top-5s in his final year with Team Penske.
Despite not winning, William Byron was satisfied with how the race went.
“I didn’t have a chance to get the lead myself on the last lap, so that was the thought process. I just couldn’t quite get him clear into (turn) three, or he didn’t take it into three. And then, I just kind of had to be diligent to push him the rest of the way. I felt like it all worked out. I’m happy for Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) and everyone at Chevrolet. They deserve it. Ricky is a really good drafter,” Byron said.
William Byron is locked into the Round of 8, thanks to earning 33 points for a third-place finish and 14 for finishing third and fifth in the stages. Byron is 74 points ahead of Joey Logano (first driver below the cutline) and 61 points above Chase Elliott (first driver above the cutline).
Three of the top-four lap leaders failed to finish after a 28-car wreck with three laps to go Sunday.
Michael McDowell, who led four times for 42 laps, finished 37th. Austin Cindric, who led a race-high 10 times for 29 laps, finished 32nd, with Joey Logano behind him. Logano led seven times for 19 laps.
The 28-car wreck brought out the fourth and final caution of the race. The first caution fell on lap 13 on the backstretch after the field lapped Daniel Suarez. Suarez was much slower and tried filling a spot on the outside lane but wrecked himself off the bumper of BJ McLeod.
Stage one saw wild four-wide racing for laps on-end. Chris Buescher took home the stage win.
STAGE ONE (LAP 60): Buescher, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., William Byron, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney
Stage two ran mostly clean with multiple strategies in play. Some of the Ford drivers tried pitting early to break the rest of the field from saving fuel. However, three of those drivers missed pit road and the rest of them didn’t have the momentum they wanted.
Martin Truex Jr. also spun when pitting with the other Toyota drivers.
By the end of stage two, Austin Cindric emerged with the lead of the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet drivers, with Chase Elliott leading. Elliott took the lead from Cindric but Cindric rallied back for the stage win.
Cindric received a push from Ryan Blaney who wrecked hard at the stage finish after a bad bump from Alex Bowman. Blaney also collected Ross Chastain.
As the race came down to the finish, the Ford drivers were up front again.
Cindric and Keselowski led after pit stops with Logano lined up behind them. It was all going to plan until a hard bump from Logano to Keselowski triggered a 28-car wreck.
That wreck changed everything. Here is what the playoff standings looked like before the wreck:
- Austin Cindric – LEADER/WIN
- William Byron +51
- Kyle Larson +28
- Christopher Bell +23
- Chase Elliott +18
- Joey Logano +8
- Alex Bowman +6
- Ryan Blaney +5
- Tyler Reddick -5
- Denny Hamlin -17
- Chase Briscoe -23
- Daniel Suarez -42
Playoff standings after Talladega
- William Byron – ADVANCED ON POINTS
- Christopher Bell +57
- Kyle Larson +52
- Denny Hamlin +30
- Alex Bowman +26
- Ryan Blaney +25
- Tyler Reddick +14
- Chase Elliott +13
- Joey Logano -13
- Daniel Suarez -20
- Austin Cindric -29
- Chase Briscoe -32
The Round of 8 will be set after the Oct. 13 Bank of America ROVAL 400. The green flag will fly just after 2 p.m. ET on NBC, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
A.J. Allmendinger won last year. It is unclear if he will be back to defend his win.
- Michael Waltrip, Glen Wood, Billy Wade, Nelson Stacy, Ken Schrader, Morgan Shepherd, Eddie Pagan, Joe Nemechek, Hershel McGriff, Parnelli Jones, Pete Hamilton, Lloyd Dane, Bob Flock, Charlie Glotzbach, Bobby Hamilton, Eddie Gray ↩︎
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com