When is Daytona 500 in 2021? Date, initiating time, TV schedule for bustle & qualifying

The NASCAR Cup Series will initiate its 73rd season on Valentine’s Day 2021 with the 63rd running of the Daytona 500, aka The Huge American Flee, aka simply The 500.

This year’s event will be noteworthy totally different than the 2020 model thanks to the continued effects of COVID-19. Flee attendance at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Sea bound, Fla., will be restricted to about 30,000 socially distanced spectators. Sooner than the pandemic, the tune schedule for Speedweeks became reduced to six days, from 9 days in 2020.

MORE: Watch the Daytona 500 dwell with fuboTV (7-day free trial)

And for the most important time in two a long time, the bustle discipline would possibly perchance perchance well simply no longer embody Jimmie Johnson. The seven-time Cup Series champion retired as a pudgy-time NASCAR driver after final season. Johnson has already raced at Daytona this year, then again; he competed in the Rolex 24 on the flexibility’s aspect motorway route. 

What hasn’t modified is the importance of the bustle to drivers, groups and sponsors. It stays NASCAR’s most prestigious event. 

Below is all you need to know to imagine the 2021 Daytona 500 on Fox, the network’s 18th presentation of the bustle.

When is Daytona 500 in 2021?

• Date: Sunday, Feb. 14
• Beginning time: 2: 30 p.m. ET
• TV network: Fox
• Dwell mosey: Fox Sports activities Spin, fuboTV
• Radio: MRN

NASCAR lists the Daytona 500 initiating time as 2: 30 p.m.; truly, that is the initiating time for Fox’s bustle telecast. The green flag figures to fall spherical 3 p.m. ET, weather allowing.

Fox made a alternate to its broadcast crew in the offseason. The network employed retired driver Clint Bowyer as a bustle analyst, adding him to a crew that returns Mike Joy (play-by-play), aged Bowyer nemesis Jeff Gordon (diagnosis) and Larry McReynolds (diagnosis). The four will lead the network’s Daytona 500 bustle protection.

Jamie Diminutive, Regan Smith and Vince Welch would possibly be the pit journalists for the bustle. Chris Myers and Shannon Spake will anchor prerace protection on Fox and FS1. Michael Waltrip, Bobby Labonte and Tom Rinaldi will present Daytona 500 protection for the networks, as effectively.

Daytona 500 2021 TV schedule

Flee followers can imagine 2021 Speedweeks events on the Fox family of networks. Programming will originate with the annual Busch Clash exhibition bustle. NASCAR moved the Clash from Daytona’s 2.5-mile oval to the flexibility’s 3.61-mile aspect motorway route for this year.

The Busch Clash, Daytona 500 practices, pole qualifying, the Duels and the Daytona 500 will air dwell on FS1, FS2 or Fox and be broadcast on MRN, the Motor Racing Community.

Below is the pudgy TV schedule for all Daytona 500 educate courses, qualifying events and races. All events being confirmed on FS1 or Fox would be streamed dwell on Fox Sports activities Spin.

• Tuesday, Feb. 9

• Wednesday, Feb. 10

• Thursday, Feb. 11

• Saturday, Feb. 13

• Sunday, Feb. 14

Daytona 500 2021 qualifying

NASCAR employs a one-of-a-form layout to plan the discipline for its premier event. It begins with pole qualifying. The drivers who enact 1-2 in this session are locked into the front row for the bustle.

The pudgy pole qualifying results are ancient to put together Segment 2, the Duel races. Drivers who qualify in weird-numbered positions (first, third and so forth) will bustle in the most important Duel. Drivers who qualify in even-numbered spots (2nd, fourth, and so forth) will bustle in the 2nd Duel. Every bustle is 150 miles lengthy (60 laps).

The implications of the most important Duel bustle will plan the internal row of the Daytona 500 discipline; the implications of the 2nd Duel bustle will plan the outdoor row.

NASCAR had no longer launched an educated entry checklist for the 2021 Daytona 500 as of Feb. 4. What is sure is that the series’ 36 “structure” groups are guaranteed spots in the 40-automobile discipline and a team of “initiate” groups will compete for the final four spots. The drivers in the initiate vehicles will should produce the bustle thru pole qualifying or their enact in the Duel races.

Daytona 500 2021 odds

It be no longer dazzling that two-time defending bustle winner Denny Hamlin is the making a wager current for the 2021 bustle, however 2020 Cup Series champion Slump Elliott is a tiny shock as the 2nd selection because of he has executed no better than 14th in his five Daytona 500s regardless of profitable the pole twice.

Bubba Wallace, who signed with the recent Hamlin-Michael Jordan 23XI Racing crew final year, would be a mark play at 20-1. Wallace is stable on restrictor-plate tracks, and he executed a profession-most spirited 2nd in the 2018 Daytona 500.

Below are FanDuel Sportsbook’s odds (as of Feb. 1) to steal the 2021 Daytona 500:

This text has been corrected to protest that changes to the 2021 Speedweeks had been made earlier than COVID-19, and that MRN will broadcast all Daytona 500 practices.