Winning races in NASCAR isn’t a given; even if it was, they just. don’t happen. William Byron from Hendrick Motorsports knows a lot about winning lately, but he also knows a lot about how hard it is to win. The driver of the famed No. 24 Chevrolet has been the winningest racer in the Next Gen Car era thus far.
Byron has three wins thus far in 2024, including the season-opening Daytona 500. He had won over three races at this point in the season in 2023 as well. Just because you win three races early doesn’t always mean it will keep happening all season. Every Champion in the history of NASCAR has had down points during a season. It’s such a long tough season, it should be expected that a driver will have some difficulties during the year.
That has been the theme for Byron during his Cup career, he has had struggles during the summer part of the season. That is no different this season except it has been a rough stretch lately.
William Byron Sounds Off On Recent Struggles in Cup Series
Byron won six races in 2023 and made it to the Championship Four. He has quickly become a contender for the championship year in and out, with how competitive he is at all of the race tracks on the schedule. Lately, Byron has been less than spectacular as the races play out.
Byron spoke about his recent run of bad luck that includes finishes of 19th or worse in three of the last four races, not to mention finishes outside the top 20 five times this season. That is the most for a driver who has won three times. He had high hopes once again this past week at Nashville Superspeedway after another good qualifying effort. He spoke with Jim Utter from Motorsport.com about his run of bad luck.
“I mean we’re certainly trying hard. I feel like we’re preparing harder than we ever have,” Byron said. “You know, I think we’ve just been a bit across the board, all over the board with results. But if you look at the speed that we’ve had, Sonoma comes to mind as a race where we had top-three or four speed, but never really got to show that because we had a flat tire early and then got in that wreck with everyone in Turn 11.”
Byron’s Firey Start Has Cooled Off
The way Byron started the year winning the 500, and then winning at Circuit of the Americas, and winning at Martinsville on the 40th Anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports certainly had him among the favorites for the title this season.
That early success has certainly cooled considerably, but he still has the confidence things can get back in order and stay in contention.
Byron addressed how frustrating the results have been, and how quickly he’s fallen back in the regular season points race.
“I just look at the results as a bit frustrating because we’ve been all over the board. But Iowa was a really good race for us, finishing second,” Byron told Utter. “I feel like we just have to be able to show up week in and week out and put together those consistent weekends; communication-wise, effort-wise and limit the mistakes and just see where we are.”
Opportunity To Get Things Right
The Chicago Street Race should be interesting, as Byron has started to showcase how much better he has gotten at road racing. Two career road course wins don’t hurt. One thing is for certain William Byron needs a good finish this weekend to get his confidence back.
Chrome 😍😍 https://t.co/ajaU3E0MZN
— William Byron (@WilliamByron) July 3, 2024
Last year’s event had plenty of chaos, so if Byron can avoid trouble this time around things play out nicely for him, especially with so many strong tracks for the team in the final eight races of the regular season. Byron isn’t that far off honestly, just look how well he was running at Nashville until everything went crazy in the final stage.
Don’t count out the No. 24 car and team.
