William Byron during driver introductions for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway. (Photo: Sydney Redden | The Podium Finish)
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Despite dominating the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway, William Byron finished in second place after losing control of the race during the final stage.
Byron led the first 243 laps of the race before surrendering the lead during the final green flag pit stop cycle. The No. 24 team elected to pit later in the cycle, allowing for the other leaders to undercut Byron. Once the cycle was complete, he found himself behind Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Joey Logano.
In the closing laps of the race, it was looking like it would be a fourth-place finish for Byron until a caution came out with just four laps to go when Kyle Larson spun after getting hit from behind by Bubba Wallace. Wallace checked up when Reddick got into the wall while battling Ryan Blaney for the lead in Turn 2. This brought all of the leaders down pit road for the final time with Byron coming off in the third position.
Even with the second shot at getting the win with one final restart, Byron was not able to get back to the lead as Denny Hamlin drove away for his second consecutive victory of the season.
William Byron racing during the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway in a Jeff Gordon 2015 Throwback paint scheme. (Photo: Sydney Redden | The Podium Finish)
“First off, just really proud of my team,” Byron said post-race. “To bring that level of effort and preparation and to have a car like that. It was looking like it was going to be a perfect race, and we were going to lead every lap.”
When looking back on the strategy during the final green flag pit stops, Byron brought up how the other drivers had the luxury of more aggressive strategy calls while not leading the race. By the time the other drivers successfully undercut him, it was too late to get back to the lead.
“Those guys could just be aggressive on the other side of the green flag cycle and we lost control there,” he said. “Once we lost control, it was too late in the going to kind of get back up there.”
To go along with leading a race-high 243 laps, Byron also swept the first two stages, earning 56 points during the race. This helped grow his lead in the NASCAR Cup Series driver standings to 49 points over Hamlin and Byron now has the most laps led with 354 and most stage wins with three in the series.
William Byron during a dominating performance at Darlington Raceway, leading 243 laps en route to a second-place finish. (Photo: Sydney Redden | The Podium Finish)
Byron also set a record at Darlington Raceway for the most consecutive laps led to start a race, surpassing the record Bill Elliott set in 1988 of 107 laps.
As the series heads to Bristol Motor Speedway next weekend, Byron and his No. 24 team carry a lot of momentum into the Food City 500 after rebounding from a 22nd-place finish a week ago at Martinsville Speedway.
Even with the heartbreak of putting on the clinic that Byron did and not reaching Victory Lane, he still looked at the positives in bringing such a dominant car to the track, even if the heartbreak of defeat will sting for a while.
“Yeah, it sucks,” he said. “I’m sure it will sting a lot tonight, but there are still a lot of positives, it just stings in the moment for sure.”
