Pocono – After making noise on Saturday by winning the Busch Pole Award, William Byron followed up his qualifying performance with a 9th place finish in the Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday.
After finishing in the Top 10 only once in the first ten races of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, Byron now has three Top 10s in the last four races. The second year Hendrick Motorsports driver led a total of 65 laps in those four races, with an average start of 1.75.
In 14 races this season, Byron already tied his Top 10 total from the 2018 season, and led four more laps than the entire previous year.
While a win is every driver’s ultimate goal when the cars hit the track on Sunday, having strong, consistent races are arguably more important to build confidence and momentum heading into the following week. Another strong run in the Pocono 400 has the 21 year old from Charlotte, North Carolina believing his team is heading in the right direction.
“It was really good, we had some really good parts of the race. We kind of went for the points which, with the way the strategy was it was hard to get back there. We got a lot of points today which is great – we had really good stages and really good runs there,” said Byron after the race.
William Byron Showed Speed Throughout Pocono 400 Weekend
At the drop of the green flag, Byron took the lead through Turn 1 and held onto the first position until the competition caution on Lap 20. The #24 team maintained track position early in the race, finishing 2nd in Stage 1 and 3rd in Stage 2.
Kyle Busch amongst others elected to pit for tires and fuel before the end of the stages to gain track position on the following restarts. This mired Byron deeper in the field in the final stage, and found it challenging to progress through the field.
“We were definitely as fast as him (Kyle Busch) at the start of the race – it was just hard for us to get by guys and that was a hindrance. Overall it was really good, the guys did a great job on the car and this was a solid day. We’ve had two in a row now; that’s great for us,” stated Byron.
When asked what prevented the team from reaching victory lane in the Pocono 400, and what improvements can be made to get his first career win, the Hendrick driver said, “Getting better restarts, getting better track position through strategy was kind of the difference.”
And when asked if a win was possible if track position was in his favor, “Probably, yeah. We just never got there,” Byron said smiling.
