NASCAR has been inconsistent with the number of caution flags at the end of races this season, but the expectation is that this will change as competition officials lean more toward driver safety.
"If we don't throw the caution, you're incentivizing the competitors to drive through that," NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio this week. "So, if you look back over the last week or so and nine superspeedway races that we've had... everybody is on top of each other.
"So the element of a last lap caution is there, as we've seen. It's on the sanctioning body to make sure that we do our absolute best to get to the start-finish line under green, but there is conditions and situations where we need to throw that. And we're going to err more on throwing it than not."
The reason this is a topic of conversation is the number of incidents that occurred at the end of races at Daytona and Atlanta. NASCAR threw the caution on the final lap of the second Duel race at Daytona as a wreck occurred behind Erik Jones and Austin Cindric. This created confusion about which driver won the race.
The Daytona 500 also had an incident on the final lap, but NASCAR let the race run green to the end. William Byron and several other drivers avoided a crash that collected Denny Hamlin, Cole Custer, Cindric, and several other drivers.
Byron and others raced to the start-finish line while track safety crews rushed to the site of the wreckage. The caution never flew.
One week later, NASCAR held the caution once again during the Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. A crash occurred off Turn 2 and collected several cars. The leaders raced to the finish line under green flag conditions.
Sawyer informed competitors during Sunday afternoon's Drivers' Meeting that the Tower would throw the yellow if a similar incident occurred during the Cup Series race.
This is exactly what happened as a crash occurred on the backstretch. NASCAR threw the caution as Christopher Bell, Carson Hocevar, and Kyle Larson were racing three-wide toward the start-finish line. This froze the field with Bell in the lead.
Hamlin said on his podcast, "Actions Detrimental," that NASCAR made the right call. Many other drivers agreed, considering the potential danger of racing through wrecking cars and a field of debris.
⚠️ "There's obviously been some inconsistencies [...] we gotta throw those cautions at the end of the race."@woodbrothers21 driver @joshberry suffered "nearly a 30 G hit" during the caution that ended the race at @ATLMotorSpdwy on Sunday.
More → https://t.co/MKhd9eLpQA pic.twitter.com/D8vj5ZZdwX
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) February 25, 2025
"I don't have control of that button," Adam Stevens, crew chief for Bell, said after Atlanta. "I think (officials) do the best job they possibly can. It's not easy, and they're trying to give the fans a checkered flag finish, but they don't want to put anybody in danger either.
"They're trying to assess if the field is going to come back around. They're trying to assess how hard the person may have hit. It's a lot of decision-making to make in a split second. So they do the best they can."