Daytona 500 Picks, Predictions, and Race Preview

Gentlemen, start your engines!

The 2023 NASCAR season is about to get underway with this year's edition of the Daytona 500.

The auto racing odds suggest a very close pack near the top and the high-variance results at Daytona would certainly hint at this being anyone's race.

Find out the best angles as we break down our Daytona 500 betting picks. And be sure to get a full preview of the field with our Daytona 500 odds.

Daytona 500 favorites

Denny Hamlin (+1,200)

Pretty low odds for a superspeedway race, but Hamlin has won the Daytona 500 in three of the past seven years, including two of the last four. One could say that Hamlin is this generation’s Dale Earnhardt as he’s, more times than not, a contender to win all four points-paying stops on superspeedways. 

Since 2012, he’s finished outside the Top 5 in just three of his 11 Daytona 500 tries. No one else has been better in that span. Plus, Hamlin seems to find peace in the midst of tragedy. JD Gibbs passed away in January before the 2019 Daytona 500. The reason Hamlin is in the No. 11 is because of JD. They were close. Hamlin won that year. 

Last November, another member of the Gibbs family tragically passed. It was JD’s brother. Hamlin, in a contract year, could give this Gibbs family some peace with a fourth victory in this prestigious race. When someone’s back is against the wall, give me Hamlin to fight through it. 

Ryan Blaney (+1,200)

Where Hamlin is this generation’s Dale Earnhardt, Ryan Blaney is on the verge of becoming the next Denny Hamlin. Blaney won the summer Daytona race in 2021 and also had two prior wins at Talladega too.

Six of his last eight Daytona results overall (counting the summer ‘400) have been inside of the Top 6. Last year’s loss in the end (fourth) still resonates with him. He’s had two Top-4 finishes in his last three Great American Races and it would be fitting to enter the 2023 season on the heels of going winless in all of 2022 to win the first race out of the gates. 

Since the start of the 2020 season, only Hamlin has as many speedway wins as Blaney, but Blaney tops all with average finishing position (10.1) too. He's had the second-most Top 5's (5) and tied for most Top 10's (7). He also has the third most laps led (186) in that span. 

Bubba Wallace (+1,600)

One could say 2021 was Wallace’s breakout season. One could also say 2022 was as well. What about 2023? Bubba was runner-up in two of his last three overall Daytona starts. He won the Fall Talladega race in October of 2021.

In five career Daytona 500 appearances, he has a pair of runner-up finishes. Bridesmaid no more, Wallace is poised to score his third career win in Sunday’s race. He’s tied with the third-most Top-5 finishes (four) in the 12-race span since 2020. 

Daytona 500 sleepers

Kevin Harvick (+2,500)

A sentimental favorite here. He’s a past Daytona 500 champion (2007) and has a pair of Top-5 finishes in his last three Daytona 500 starts as well. This will mark his final Daytona 500 as he’ll retire at season’s end. 

Ryan Preece (+3,000)

A pair of Top-10 finishes in three Daytona 500 tries, and those came with JTG Daugherty Racing. Imagine what he can do in a Stewart-Haas Racing Ford this time around. He’s going to be the 2023 version of Ross Chastain. Just watch. This will be Preece’s breakout moment. 

Noah Gragson (+4,000)

Could be just like Cindric last year. A series rookie this season, but not for this race in particular. He looked good last year before being caught up in that end-of-the-race crash. In the return trip last August, Gragson placed fifth. He’s won an Xfinity Series race at Daytona as well as the 2022 NXS race at Talladega as well.  

Daytona 500 fades

Chase Elliott (+1,200)

The good? He was runner-up in the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400, runner-up in the 2020 Daytona 500, eighth in the 2020 400, and 10th in this last year’s Daytona 500, to go along with 6th in Atlanta 1, 7th in Talladega 1, and wins at Atlanta 2 and Talladega 2 last year.

The bad?  He’s finished 30th or worse in almost half of his 12 Daytona starts. In fact, he’s been 14th or worse in all but two starts. Elliott’s other Daytona 500 finishes are 37th, 14th, 33rd, 17th, 17th, and 10th, respectively. Too much good and bad for me to wager on him for these odds. 

Kyle Larson (+1,200)

Larson has never won a superspeedway race and has just one Top 5 in 35 starts on them, at that. He was 32nd and 37th at Daytona last year. 

Joey Logano (+1,600)

These were arguably his worst tracks last season. Logano was 21st in the Daytona 500, ninth in Atlanta 1, 32nd in Talladega 1, 26th in Atlanta 2, 12th in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 and 27th in Talladega respectively.  He was also 26th and 27th, respectively, in the pair of Daytona races in 2020, and 12th and 23rd in 2021. 

Daytona 500 prop pick: Chase Elliott (-120) vs. Kyle Larson (+100)

This feels like stealing candy from a baby here. Larson, with no Top-5 finishes before at Daytona matched up against a teammate who just won Talladega last Fall and was runner-up in the 2021 Daytona 500. 

Pick: Elliott  (-120 at DraftKings)

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Daytona International Speedway track analysis

Daytona International Speedway is a fast 2.5-mile-high banked superspeedway that differs from all but one other track on the schedule: Talladega. These two tracks produce four of the 36 points-paying races over the course of a season and look entirely different than the other 32 events. 

That’s because they use a tapered spacer on the engines to restrict speeds, and by the design of the aerodynamic package used on these two tracks, it forms a pack to race in. Basically, these cars are flat-out pedal to the metal without using the brake pedal and all are pretty much going the same speed. Drafting is key here, and that on its own is an art itself. 

The good ones on these tracks are good for a reason and can sense when the pack is getting too aggressive and sometimes find a way out of it in order to avoid the incoming carnage. However, there are times too where they can’t get out in time and end up wadded up in the infield like the rest of them. 

That’s why winning at Daytona is like winning the lottery. It’s as even of a race for every car and driver combination as you’ll get all season. 

Weather can sometimes impact this race, which could alter strategy. Lap 101 would make this an official race. 

Nothing has changed on the track since last year, so what you saw a year ago is what you’ll get this time around. 

Tires aren’t usually a factor here since there’s minimal tire wear. 

First-time winners are rare in the Daytona 500, but have happened more lately than in most other eras of this race. Of the 64 Daytona 500 races, only nine times has a driver posted his career-first NASCAR Cup Series victory with a win in the event; although drivers accomplished the feat in each of the last two years — Austin Cindric and Michael McDowell. Those prior were Trevor Bayne in 2011, and then Michael Waltrip in 2001. 

Daytona 500 trends

• The pole winner hasn’t won this race in 23 years. In fact, 17 of the last 21 races have seen the pole winner finish outside of the Top 10. The last five pole winners have failed to even get to 16th in the end with the best result since 2015 being 14th by Elliott in 2017. Furthermore, the last time the pole winner even finished in the Top 5 was 2002 (Bill Elliott).
  
  
• The last win for the second-place starter came in 1993 (Dale Jarrett). They have only finished in the Top 10 four times since 2006. Just five times in the last 27 years has the second-place starter come home with a Top-5 finish. 
  
  
• The last driver to win a Duel and the Daytona 500 in the same year was Matt Kenseth in 2012. He’s the only one to do so in the last 18 years. 
  
  
• In 2020, Denny Hamlin became just the fourth driver to win back-to-back Daytona 500s. Richard Petty did it in 1973 and ‘74. Cale Yarborough did it in 1983 and ‘84. Sterling Marlin was the last before Hamlin to do so in 1994 and ‘95. The odds don’t look favorable for Austin Cindric to repeat on Sunday. 

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