The 67th Daytona 500 will have a 41st driver as four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves will use a controversial new NASCAR provisional to make his Cup debut Sunday in The Great American Race.
Castroneves crashed on Lap 14 in the first Duel qualifying race. Caught in a multicar wreck triggered by Chandler Smith, Castroneves’ No. 91 Chevrolet slammed the outside wall with its right rear and broke a toe link.
While limping back toward the pits, Castroneves accidentally steered his left front on the apron. His car shot up the banking into the outside wall in a heavy right-front impact and then slid back into the infield grass.
“I should have brought it down on the warmup lane,” Castroneves told FS1. “I was a little fast. The second hit was a little bit tough.
“But the good news is hopefully the guys are going to be able to fix the car. But I learned so much. How to save fuel, small details that folks don’t understand, It’s so interesting. I love it. We’re going to have to take the provisional. That’s not what I wanted, but we will, and in the end, I have more to learn.”
Despite the rookie mistake at Daytona International Speedway, Castroneves, who has two victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona endurance race, was saved by his superstar reputation.
Though he failed to make the 40-car field on qualifying speed or race results, the 2007 “Dancing With The Stars” winner still is in the Daytona 500 as an additional 41st driver through a new NASCAR rule for the 2025 season that created a provisional guaranteeing a spot to a “world-class driver” in every Cup race.
His Trackhouse Racing entry will be ineligible for earning points and prize money in his NASCAR debut. Drivers who finish below Castroneves in Sunday’s Daytona 500 will have their finishing position adjusted upward one spot and also have their prize money, race points and stage points adjusted.
Castroneves was granted the Open Exemptional Provisional for the Daytona 500 because Trackhouse applied before a deadline that had passed when many teams became aware of the new rule, which has drawn heavy criticism from several star drivers such as Denny Hamlin.
“It reeks of desperation,” Hamlin said before The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. “I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t know how nice you can really say it. It just feels like you are really trying to get any kind of headline you can to be relevant, and I don’t love it.
“To me, it is a short-term gain, long-term loss. I just think that you are premier stock car series in the U.S. The premier racing sport in the U.S. Be the big boys and force people to come in here and get their credentials and do it the natural way. I don’t think it is going to be a big factor anywhere other than Daytona, but saying that someone has a name that interests you and that they are going to have an automatic bid in the highest form of motorsports in the U.S. I don’t love it.”
Past champions Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson, who both had to make the race without a safety net, also were displeased by the rule.
We really didn’t know about it until the rule came out (in January),” Johnson said Wednesday. “Evidently, it was buried in the charter agreement that was pushed out. When the rule came out … three minutes later we were on the phone with NASCAR and recognized that it wasn’t in the 90-day window (before the 500) and that we weren’t eligible.
“We’ve had a lot of talks with everyone at NASCAR. I have a better understanding of the intent of the rule. I would anticipate some changes following here to better define and clarify that.”
