Massive crash takes out 21 cars in final stages of Daytona 500

Paul Menard caused the pile-up after he collided with Matt DiBenedetto.

Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Daytona 500 in a race overshadowed by a massive 21-car pile-up in Florida on Sunday.

Hamlin took the chequered flag to win the event for the second time in four years, but the race will be remembered for a huge crash that wiped out more than half of the 40-strong field.

With just 10 laps of the 500-mile race to run, Paul Menard collided with Matt DiBenedetto to set the chain of events in motion.

Menard was battling for fifth position and attempted a ‘bump and run’ on his rival, but the move backfired.

The event was stopped for 25 minutes but, remarkably, no driver was injured in the accident.

“That was my bad,” Menard, who apologised to DiBenedetto after the crash, told Fox. “I wrecked a lot of cars and I feel bad about that.

“It was go time, and I was pushing the number 95 car and it looked like he was trying to get to the middle and I started trying to get to the outside and just barely hooked him.”

Hamlin led Kyle Busch and Erik Jones in a one-two-three clean sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing.

JD Gibbs, who co-founded the team with his father, died last month after a degenerative neurological disease.

PATNA, India (AP) — A major fire that engulfed a restaurant and hotel in eastern India on Thursday killed at least six people and injured 20, a local fire officer said.

The fire began when a cooking gas cylinder exploded while diners were eating in the restaurant, and it soon spread into an adjacent hotel in Patna, the capital of Bihar state, said Satya Prakash, the officer.

At least 40 people were rescued from the two buildings by firefighters who doused the blaze using more than a dozen fire engines, Prakash said.

The hotel is in a congested area next to Patna's railroad station. Several vehicles parked at the hotel were gutted, Prakash said.

He said some guests in the hotel jumped from their room windows and were injured. Other details were not immediately available.

Fires are common in India, where builders and residents often flout building laws and safety codes.

In 2019, a fire caused by an electrical short circuit engulfed a building in the Indian capital and killed 43 people. In 2022, a fire in a four-story commercial building in New Delhi killed at least 27.

Firefighters douse a fire which broke out in a restaurant and hotel near the Patna Junction railway station, in Patna, Bihar, India, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui)

Firefighters douse a fire which broke out in a restaurant and hotel near the Patna Junction railway station, in Patna, Bihar, India, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui)