UPDATE: The cars of Ryan Preece and Joey Logano both failed post-race inspection. The No. 60 had three spoiler shims instead of two, while the No. 22 was missing a spoiler bolt. As a result, both drivers will instead be credited with 38th and 39th place in the Jack Link’s 500. Team Penske announced it will not appeal Logano’s DQ. No word yet from RFK Racing.
Austin Cindric won Sunday’s (April 27) Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, beating Ryan Preece by 0.022 seconds.
Cindric got enough help from Kyle Larson on the bottom line to beat Preece to the line and earn the third win of his NASCAR Cup Series career as the hungry pack tried to charge behind him.
“I’m just so proud of this team,” Cindric told FOX Sports. “We talk about it in every single one of those meetings, why we haven’t won one of these races. Just really proud of the effort.”
Cindric had a 3.2-second pit stop during the final green flag cycle, which was the quickest of any driver during that round of pit stops. The newfound track position the stop gave Cindric was what he needed in order to get in the mix.
Preece, Larson, William Byron, Joey Logano, Noah Gragson, Chase Elliott, Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace completed the top 10 (Daniel Suarez and Austin Dillon move into the top 10 due to the Preece and Logano disqualifications).
Preece came up just shy of his first career Cup Series win, falling to Cindric by just two one-hundredths of a second.
“I’m happy, but as a racer, you want to win,” Preece told FOX Sports. “Coming through the tri-oval, I’m like, ‘Alright, we’re sticking together.’
“No one was really leaving me. I wish I didn’t have to shade up so much and side draft Austin [Cindric] so I could pull him back.”
Larson put together one of the best superspeedway races of his career on Sunday, winning stage 1 and ultimately finishing third.
“I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done on the final lap,” Larson told FOX Sports. “The only moment I had to get to the front row was when we got pushed out in front of William [Byron], and I wanted to take it, but I felt like the gap was too big. We were all just pushing so equally that it kept the lanes jammed up.”
Steering issues plagued Byron early in the race, but once those issues were resolved, he became a contender for the win.
“The guys did a great job getting it to where I could drive it in the third stage,” Byron told FOX Sports. “The first part of the race was really sketchy. To be able to overcome that is a testament to what our team is this year.”
The only cautions for cause in Sunday’s race both came in stage one. On Lap 43, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney tangled coming onto pit road.
On the ensuing restart, a push gone wrong from Denny Hamlin turned Christopher Bell into Chris Buescher, sending both cars hard into the inside wall.
Jack Link’s 500 Results
The 11th race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season will take place at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 4. The Wurth 400 will go green shortly after 3:30 p.m. ET, with coverage on FOX Sports 1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.