Daytona 500 2015: Highlights and Sprint Cup Standings After Joey Logano's Win

The 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup season is only one race old, but it's already an unforgettable one for Joey Logano as he became the second-youngest driver ever to win the Daytona 500, in its 57th running.

Logano headlined a star-studded crop featuring Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick heading down a final green-white-checkered finish. The exciting finish to an otherwise heart-stopping race was marred by a late caution, which propelled Logano to the victory under a yellow flag.

The race didn't lack on late dramatics, and the disappointing ending didn't make the moment any less sweet for Logano, per NASCAR:

The 24-year-old's winning push came in the final few laps. Desperately chasing behind Johnson with three-wide action directly behind him, Logano got a favorable push from Clint Bowyer heading down the stretch and put him in the lead entering a duo of late cautions.

That included a red flag with just two laps to go, and both Harvick and Earnhardt Jr. looked poised to make a final push on the last lap before wreckage in the rear-view mirror allowed the race to finish on a caution flag.

Here's how the Sprint Cup standings look just after Logano's victory, per NASCAR.com:

Pos.	Driver	Points	Wins	Top 5	Top 10
1	Joey Logano	47	1	1	1
2	Kevin Harvick	42	0	1	1
3	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	42	0	1	1
4	Denny Hamlin	41	0	1	1
5	Jimmie Johnson	40	0	1	1
6	Casey Mears	39	0	0	1
7	Clint Bowyer	37	0	0	1
8	Martin Truex Jr.	37	0	0	1
9	Kasey Kahne	35	0	0	1
10	Greg Biffle	35	0	0	1

While Sunday ended with Logano's victory dominating the post-race talk, it began in a cloud of controversy surrounding an interesting Speedweeks that saw a number of multi-car pileups and dramatic crashes. That didn't seem to carry over into the Daytona 500, at least through the opening 40 laps.

On Lap 41, however, the race took a turn for the worse when Tony Stewart was involved in a sizable crash that took him out of the running, per Bleacher Report:

Stewart's unfortunate wreck mired him to a 38th-place finish, and the 43-year-old will have the tough task of bouncing back from a season-opening wreck. It was car troubles that doomed him Sunday, as Dustin Long of NBC Sports noted:

Fortunately for the rest of the pack, Stewart's early wreck didn't set the tone for the rest of the race. Things carried on somewhat ideally, with Jeff Gordon staking his claim to the early race lead.

Gordon led 87 laps, which ended up being more than any other driver. He was in the mix until the very end, but struggled to keep pace with Johnson, Earnhardt Jr. and more as things heated up.

Junior had one of the fastest cars on the track Sunday, which played a big role in his securing his eighth top-three finish at Daytona. But late in the race, he failed to put himself in favorable position following two restarts, per Nate Ryan of USA Today:

While Earnhardt Jr. was fighting for positioning at the top, so too were Johnson and Logano. The duo seemed to trade the lead back and forth multiple times as the race got tight, per NASCAR:

The fight between Logano, Johnson and more near the front was only amplified by the cutthroat racing behind them. There were dozens of drivers on the lead lap, all of whom were three-wide coming down the final 10 to 12 laps with the action heating up.

Right as it looked like we would see a contact-free finale, cars at the front began bumping into one another. But instead of them causing the trouble, it was those in the back of the pack who wrecked to cause a late red flag and halt the race with two laps to go.

The best in NASCAR were gunning for Logano at the time, as told by Amy Lawrence of CBS Sports:

Fans were robbed of a dramatic finish by the late caution flag, but it's safe to say that the race was Logano's regardless of that. His lead over the rest of the front wasn't massive, but easily sizable enough for him to hold off the likes of Harvick and Earnhardt Jr. down the stretch.

Not to be lost in Logano's victory were surprising performances from Casey Mears and Martin Truex Jr., both of whom finished in the top 10 after contending in the front pack down the stretch. Bowyer was rewarded for his late aid of Logano by finishing seventh.

But let's not get away from the real story here: the inspiring victory of Logano, which Ryan showcased:

With the way the new Sprint Cup formula is devised, winning the Daytona 500 is no longer what it used to be in terms of setting a driver up for late-season success. But its place as the most important race of the season is still firmly in stone, and it's truer than ever that no driver can truly be considered elite without winning the Great American Race.

Logano still has a Sprint Cup Series to chase, but nobody will be overlooking him after the Daytona 500—as if anyone could have done so before.