For the 11th round of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, the best drivers in the world headed down south to the Fort Worth-Dallas area of the Lone Star State for their annual stop at the Texas Motor Speedway. Heading into today’s race, Hendrick drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson topped the points standings. They were looking to continue their stellar season here today. Meanwhile, their teammate Chase Elliott, defending winner of the race, was looking to snap his winless streak and at long last return to victory lane. In addition, veteran drivers like Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Joey Logano were hoping to show the world that they still had what it took to get the job done. All three of them have had success at the track in years past.
There were a variety of storylines to look out for in today’s event. Could Ryan Blaney stop the bleeding his team has been going through all year long? They’ve shown speed but Lady Luck has not been on their side. Could Ty Gibbs continue his recent upward trajectory? He’s greatly improved in recent weeks compared to how he started the year. So, with no further ado, let’s break it down. Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from today’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway!
Texas Motor Speedway! 🤠🏁 Sunday at 2p ET on FS1. pic.twitter.com/lYjqjJ4LqL
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 2, 2025
With Josh Berry taken out of the equation and Austin Cindric fading into the afternoon, Kyle Larson found himself in control of today’s race. Larson had been head and shoulders above the rest of the Hendrick cars and was in prime position to sweep the weekend. However, behind him was Ryan Blaney. Blaney has shown the most speed out of the Penske stable, but something has gone wrong all year long. He was extremely hungry, chasing Larson from second place in the closing laps of the race.
Upon the restart with just over 20 laps to go, Larson chose the inside and Ryan Blaney chose right behind him at the choose. This left the outside wide open for McDowell. When the race went green, Larson got an uncharacteristically bad restart, allowing for McDowell to rocket out front. The cation flew when another big wreck broke out.
McDowell restarted with the lead at 15 laps to go. The driver of the 71 went through another restart but was ultimately passed by Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney. After trying his hardest to keep the lead, McDowell’s aged tires finally wore out.
The McDowell crash sent us into NASCAR Overtime. When the cars lined up, 8 of the top 10 have not one yet in 2025. Team Penske drivers restarted on the front row with Ross Chastain and Erik Jones behind them. It was a slow restart but Joey Logano ultimately prevailed with Ross Chastain through to second. As they took the white flag, it was clear that Chastain just didn’t have what it took to challenge Logano for the lead. Joey Logano won his first race of 2025, clinching his spot in the 2025 NASCAR Playoffs.
Early in the season as well as late last year, it seemed that Joe Gibbs Racing was plagued with mechanical failures, especially engine issues. While those problems seemed to have gone away in recent weeks, Hamlin had an issue today at Texas Motor Speedway. As the first stage was drawing to a close, the right side of Denny Hamlin’s number 11 Progressive Toyota burst into flames on Lap 75. The issue that was reported was an oil pan failure, which led to his engine expiring. Hamlin parked his JGR Toyota and was checked and released from the infield care center. This marks his first DNF of 2025 and snaps a 21-race lead lap finish streak, one of the longest in the sport’s history.
For Hamlin, heading into 2025 was met with a lot of uncertainty. He lost his long-time primary sponsor of FedEx at the end of last year and an anchor sponsor was yet to be found heading into the new season. Eventually, Progressive signed on as the anchor sponsor but it’s unknown how long the deal will last. Many fans were questioning Hamlin’s abilities going into the 2025 season and he silenced the nay-sayers with back-to-back victories at Martinsville and Darlington earlier this season. At 44 years old, it seems that Hamlin still has the fire in him to get the job done. The team just needs to work on issues such as this as we inch ever closer to the NASCAR Playoffs.
Earlier in the race, there was some confusion over the number 11 radio with codewords. This led to Hamlin not pitting when the rest of the field pitted, putting him in the back of the pack when he finally made his way down pit road. Hamlin had this to say after the incident.
To begin the second stage, Chase Briscoe in the JGR number 19 got out of shape and went around. He made light contact with Toyota 23XI teammate Riley Herbst before going around again and kissing the outside wall. This brought out the second caution of the day. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell had his own issues on pit road with the hose that attached to his helmet. As reported by PRN, his team had to climb into the cockpit to reattach the hose for the cooling system. When the field lined up for the race restart, the last five positions were all Toyotas.
There were a lot of eyes on Josh Berry here this weekend. The sophomore Cup Series driver won the race at Las Vegas earlier this season and has shown considerable improvement compared to last year in terms of the Wood Brothers team’s performance. Since that Vegas triumph, Berry has shown speed. However, things got in the way of them being able to realize their full potential. For example, their pit stops have been among the slowest in the NASCAR garage, which hurt him when it came to things like track position. But with Berry’s performance at Vegas, many fans believed that he would do well at Texas, considering the similarities between the two tracks.
On Saturday, Berry qualified in the 8th position and, in the opening stage, he made his way toward the front in a hurry. During pit stops, Berry pitted and opted to take only two fresh Goodyear tires. This allowed him to propel from 6th to 2nd on the grid. When the race restarted, Berry was able to maintain his position at first but eventually fell down to 3rd, where he finished the stage.
During the stage break, the 21 Wood Brothers crew was able to get Josh Berry off pit road first. When the race restarted, Berry cleared 2nd place and secured the lead. He was pulling away from second-place driver Kyle Larson when, on Lap 125, Berry spun coming out of turn 4. He went around, making hard contact with the outside SAFER barrier. It was a heartbreaking turn of events for Berry, his team, and all of his fans. Check out the incident below.
Berry ended up taking his 21 Ford to the garage. A promising day ended in frustration and heartbreak.
Following FOX’s coverage of last week’s race at Talladega, many fans discussed FOX’s decision to go to commercial break inside ten laps to go while the race was still under green flag conditions. It was explained to us that FOX sold those ad rights toward the end of the race, banking on a slew of late-race cautions. Fortunately for us (or unfortunately, depending on your stance), that caution never happened. The race went green to the end and finished on its scheduled lap. Some were disappointed by that, some weren’t. Like anything in NASCAR, it’s hard to find two fans who wholly agree on something.
Though we never got our Big One last week, we sure got a couple here today in the Lone Star State. The first one all went down on Lap 172 when Joey Logano got just slightly below Bubba Wallace, squeezing the 23 Toyota into the wall. Bubba then ricocheted off the wall and lost control. As he turned, he collected Noah Gragson and amid the chaos, A. J. Allmendinger turned and pinned Alex Bowman into the outside wall. You can relive the incident in the video clip below, provided by FOX Sports.
The next big one broke out just shy of 30 laps to go. RFK’s heartbreaker of a season continued as driver of their number 60 Ford Ryan Preece was collected by a spinning Carson Hocevar. Cody Ware was also collected. Check out the carnage below.
Just inside 20 laps to go, Brad Keselowski spun all his own coming out of turn 2. The incident collected the likes of Austin Cindric, Cole Custer, Ty Dillon, and Kyle Busch. Bad Brad is having one of the worst starts to a year in his career. Coming into this race he was 32nd in points and had zero laps led. Things got a whole lot worse for him today in the Lone Star State with this wreck.
That does it for us, Daily Downforce readers! What did you think of today’s wild race at Texas? Were you entertained? How did your driver do? What do you think about Joey Logano’s win? Let us know what you’re thinking! And be sure to come back here at DailyDownforce.com throughout the week for all the latest news and rumors right out of the NASCAR garage.
