Jones benefits from shunts

NASCAR CUP DAYTONA (USA) JULY 7 ROUND 18/36

Few drivers had nice things to say about Ricky Stenhouse Jr after his calamitous race took out over 20 cars at Daytona, handing a maiden victory to Erik Jones.

Daytona has always been famous for ‘Big Ones’, owing to the sizeable pile-ups that often occur here. Stenhouse’s was certainly memorable.

Early in stage two, he spun Brad Keselowski into oncoming traffic, notably eliminating the three Penske Fords.

While Stenhouse’s Roush Fenway Racing Ford won the first and second stages, he continued his incidentpacked charge by understeering into championship leader Kyle Busch, ending his and rookie William Byron’s race.

His recovery drive was thwarted when another in-form driver, Kyle Larson, spun into him. Stenhouse then clashed with Aric Almirola before finishing 17th.

“It’s aggressive speedway racing,” he said. “We needed to win to get in the playoffs, so it is what it is. Winning two stages was nice, but obviously we wanted to win at the end and it’s a bummer we basically crashed all of our team-mates out of it. I was frustrated with myself. You don’t ever really want to do that.”

Attrition late on would decide Jones’s victory when contender Kevin Harvick was collected and sent the race into a second spell of overtime.

Having been fourth when the race went over initially, Jones climbed to second before his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota powered around the outside of Martin Truex Jr on the final lap for his first Cup victory.

In his second full year in the series after replacing Matt Kenseth, Jones said the win shook off the burden he’s carried since taking over from a champion.

“You feel the pressure,” he said. “Coming into the year taking over and working with almost the same group that was with Matt last year, you feel that. I definitely feel like this race, this win, has lifted a lot of weight off my shoulders for sure.”