William Byron scored a hard fought fourth place finish in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas. (Photo: Justin Sheldon)
LAS VEGAS — William Byron had to feel like a 1985 hit tune when a Lap 196 caution derailed a potential Hendrick Motorsports duel for the win in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400.
Byron, who had one of the two strongest cars at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, was about the only driver who kept pace with teammate Kyle Larson toward the front of the field. Both drivers matched each other’s pace, lap-for-lap, like a Sin City heavyweight boxing match except in stock cars.
Leading twice for 10 laps, Byron had strong short and long run pace with his No. 24 Raptor Chevrolet. Starting eighth, the native of Charlotte, North Carolina, could cut the corners with efficiency and in traffic, a tough task in today’s aero sensitive Next Gen stock cars.
Running inside the top five heading into the final 70 laps, the Hendrick duo of Larson and Byron saw their promising afternoons turn upside down. Instead of occupying frontrunner positions, the Chevrolet contenders battled from outside the top 20.
In the race’s penultimate run, both climbed inside the top 10 before a Lap 244 caution for Noah Gragson‘s Turn 2 accident provided a sliver of a chance at the race win.
William Byron cut the corners with ease in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Justin Sheldon | The Podium Finish)
Larson beat Byron out of pit road as they respectively restarted inside the top 10. On the Lap 249 restart, Byron dropped the hammer, making daring maneuvers to go from ninth to fourth in the final rush to the checkered flag.
It was all for naught as far as the victory was concerned for Byron and crew chief Rudy Fugle, tallying a fourth place result.
“Yeah, when everything got flipped with the fuel strategy, not really pit strategy, but you had to pit to make it to the end of the race,” Byron said. “Everything just got flipped around and we were on the bad side of that, having to restart in the 20s and then have to drive back through the field.”
Although Fugle’s faith in Byron’s driving abilities and a strong No. 24 car stemmed from good faith, the rally was not without its challenges with changing track conditions and intense stakes in the final portions of the race.
William Byron’s fouth place finish in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas extended his points lead after five races. (Photo: Justin Sheldon | The Podium Finish)
“I thought we did a good job getting back through the field,” he observed. “Our car was a lot tighter in traffic. There’s definitely some things for us to improve and work on because I feel like once we lost the first couple of rows, it was a completely different race car. We just have to continue to improve on that.”
Like stick and ball athletes and teams, Byron and the No. 24 team will apply what they learned from their most recent effort to battle for another win next weekend. Holding onto the championship lead with a 29-point advantage over Christopher Bell, Byron lamented on what the original premise of their solid Sunday showing.
“Overall, happy with the result for the No. 24 Raptor Chevrolet team. We had a good car,” Byron said. “We definitely had one of the best cars if the race would have played out normally. We just didn’t really have a chance to get back up there at the end.”
