The Daytona 500 — NASCAR’s annual season opener — is set to kick off in just a few hours. Cup Series drivers will battle for 200 laps to determine a winner, and in many cases, that winner is a surprise.

But former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has plenty of NASCAR experience, and he’s ready to hedge his bets on one team as a winner.

Who will win the 2025 Daytona 500?

Since 1959, the NASCAR Cup Series has run the iconic Daytona 500 — a 500-mile race at the 2.5-mile oval circuit in Daytona Beach, Florida — and since 1982, it has served as the season-opening race for the sport.

Winning the Daytona 500 is huge, akin to an IndyCar driver winning the Indianapolis 500 or a Formula 1 driver taking victory at Monaco. Victors will wear that win like a badge of honor, and it will serve as one of their career highlights.

But the event is notoriously unpredictable. With 40 (or, in today’s case, 41) drivers taking to track at high speeds in pursuit of the sport’s biggest single-event prize, things get messy, and crashes are likely to wipe out some of the key players as the event goes on.

This weekend, too, the event is battling a grim weather forecast calling for rain — meaning that the race could be ended prematurely. If that’s the case, drivers will be fighting hard to stay at the front of the field from start to finish. Trying to pick a winner under those conditions, then, isn’t easy.

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Ask Juan Pablo Montoya for his prediction, though, and he’s got one easy answer: Ford.

“My money would probably be on a Ford,” he told OnlineCassino.br.

“I think Ford probably has one of the best restrictor plate packages. Penske is probably the winner.”

There are 13 Ford cars entered in this year’s Daytona 500, with Team Penske representing three of the entries. Up on the front row is Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 2 Penske Ford who was second-fastest in qualifying. His teammates Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22, will start down in 10th while Ryan Blaney will take the start from 16th in his No. 12.

As far as experience goes, all three Penske drivers have it. Cindric’s first victory in the Cup Series came at the 2022 Daytona 500, while three-time (and reigning) Cup champion Logano took a victory at the iconic race in 2015. Blaney may not have a Daytona 500 win to his name just yet, but he does have a championship — and all three were immensely consistent throughout the 2024 season.

The 2025 Daytona 500 will kick off at 1:30 p.m. ET.

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