William Byron during the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Photo: John Arndt | The Podium Finish)
DEL VALLE, Texas — William Byron came home in the runner-up position after a hard charge late in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas.
Byron, the defending winner of this race, ran sneakily inside the top 10 for most of the race before making a run at the win late.
In the final stint of the race, he was running down race leader Kyle Busch when a caution came out on Lap 78 for a multi-car incident involving Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon. This set up a restart with just 13 laps to go with Byron on the front row.
On the ensuing restart, he was run wide into Turn 1 after contact from AJ Allmendinger, allowing Christopher Bell to take second place away. This forced Byron to have to fend off both Allmendinger and Shane van Gisbergen to remain in third place.
After Byron was able to get clear of the “road course-ringers”, he began to run down Bell for second place, but was unable to complete the pass. This allowed Bell to overtake Busch for the lead on Lap 91 with both Byron and Tyler Reddick following suit on the same lap, setting up a three-way battle for the final five laps.
William Byron racing during the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at COTA. (Photo: John Arndt | The Podium Finish)
Racing into Turn 20 on the final lap, Byron was able to inch closer to the back bumper of Bell, but elected not to move the No. 20 car. Although it was a well thought out move, Bell was then able to reach the start/finish first, claiming his second consecutive win to start the season.
“Sucks to be so damn close,” Byron said post-race. “You can be on the bumper of the guy coming to the line, that sucks, but a lot of races ahead.”
Byron mentioned trying to wait for a mistake while Bell and Busch were battling to go for the lead and that Bell’s car looked to be very loose after clearing Busch for the lead. Multiple opportunities for a shot at the lead opened up, but Byron just could not find a way to get alongside Bell.
“I felt like the battle between he (Bell) and Kyle (Busch), I was kind of sitting there waiting for one of them to bobble or slide their tires,” said Byron. “I felt like once he (Bell) got clear, his car was super loose and it gave me a couple of shots at him. I just couldn’t ever get beside him.”
William Byron racing into Turn 1 at Circuit of The Americas. (Photo: John Arndt | The Podium Finish)
He also said during his post-race interview that it was important not to move Bell out of the way unnecessarily for the win, a subject that has become more relevant over recent seasons.
“We’ve always raced really well together,” Byron said. “So I didn’t want to move him blatantly and all that kind of stuff.”
Despite coming up one spot short of his second win of the 2025 season, Byron heads into the next race at Phoenix Raceway as the points leader in the NASCAR Cup Series and with a lot of momentum through the first three races thus far.
“Hopefully we can keep bringing this speed and it’s a good start to our road course program, still a little bit of work to do,” he said. “Been a good start to the year so far.”
