DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (AFP) - Jimmie Johnson won the Daytona 500 on Sunday as pole sitter Danica Patrick's bid to become the first woman to win a Nascar Sprint Cup race ended in an eighth-placed finish.

Johnson held off a last-lap charge from Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Dale Earnhardt Jr at Daytona International Speedway to win "The Great American Race" for the second time. Mark Martin was third.

Patrick, already the first woman to earn pole position for a race in Nascar's elite series, did grab another slice of racing history when she became the first woman to lead a lap of the Daytona 500 and the first to lead a lap of a Sprint Cup race under a green flag.