NASCAR Takeaways: Daytona 500 Winner William Byron Snaps Drought At Iowa

NEWTON, Iowa — William Byron snapped a 21-race winless streak on Sunday afternoon.

While a 21-race drought isn’t something to sweat over too much, when that last victory was the Daytona 500, there could be a feeling of what could be wrong.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver stretched his fuel for the win, once when he certainly needed help after pitting with 144 laps remaining at Iowa Speedway. Knowing he could only run 110 to 115 green-flag laps, Byron took advantage of 50 laps under caution in those final 144 laps on the 0.875-mile oval.

“We needed to win a race,” Byron said. “I feel like we deserved to win a race based on how we’ve run all year, and it just wasn’t happening.

“I felt like we had to learn how to do basically everything right, and things were still not really working out in our favor. This is just a big relief to have one kind of go our way. We’ve just been running so well this year. This is going to be a big momentum boost for our team.”

Winning a fuel-mileage race possibly erased some demons for Byron and his team, as he saw a couple of potential victories vanish when he ran out of gas late in a race during the summer.

Byron, who had won in NASCAR’s feeder truck and Xfinity series at the track, had finished second in the inaugural Cup race at Iowa a year ago.

Takeaways from a race where Byron was followed across the finish line by Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney and Ryan Preece.

Byron Back Atop Standings

With the victory, Byron went from four points behind teammate Chase Elliott atop the series point standings to 18 points ahead of Elliott and 45 points ahead of teammate Kyle Larson.

Three races (Watkins Glen, Richmond and Daytona) remain in the regular season, and the winner of the regular-season title earns 15 additional playoff points, while second is worth 10 and third is worth eight.

Playoff points give a driver a better chance to advance in the playoffs if they don’t win a race in the three-race playoff rounds.

“I respect my teammates a ton,” Byron said. “I feel like we learn a lot from one another. We all have kind of our unique driving styles, but we have all kind of morphed into being able to drive this car really well.

“It’s just cool to see us all compete, and hopefully us on [my team] can put three good weeks collectively on that finish of issues.”

So far as the playoff bubble, there are at the moment three spots open for drivers with out wins. Tyler Reddick has a 122-point edge on the cutoff, whereas Alex Bowman (+63) and Chris Buescher (+23) are contained in the playoff bubble with Ryan Preece (-23) on the surface trying in.

Keselowski Comes Up Quick

Brad Keselowski must win to make the playoffs and seemed to be in the perfect place halfway by means of the race to manage the occasion.

However with all of the warning flags, his pit technique didn’t pan out as he wanted some longer runs. He completed third on a day when he led 68 laps. 

“If you’re in site visitors, you simply have to make use of the automobile tougher. And by the tip, everyone’s tires had been simply rubbish as a result of we had fought in site visitors for therefore lengthy,” Keselowski stated. “The warning sequence and the best way the race performed out was not very favorable for us.

“We had good tempo and thought we executed fairly nicely.”

Keselowski was just a little annoyed.

“All of the wrecks modified the dynamic of the race,” Keselowski stated. “It was a extremely sloppy race for the sphere in the present day.

“And it shifted it to the place severely alternate methods received the race. … I’ve run into folks, so pot calling kettle black, however I don’t perceive why guys wreck for twentieth. It doesn’t make numerous sense to me.”

Briscoe Backs Up Pole

Briscoe received his sixth pole of the season, however in his final three races the place he began from the entrance, he had completed seventeenth, twenty third and 18th.

He backed up his being the quickest in qualifying by main 81 laps and ending second, his greatest end of the season in races the place he began from the pole.

Briscoe didn’t have to save lots of as a lot gas as Byron, however with all of the cautions and a observe the place elements of it had been repaved in 2024 made it troublesome to go.

“As soon as I bought [to Byron], he began taking my air and my automobile simply type of died as quickly as that occurred,” Briscoe stated. “I believed I used to be going to have the ability to nonetheless be good, particularly as he caught lapped site visitors there. I nonetheless simply didn’t fairly have sufficient.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent many years protecting motorsports, together with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting Information, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seashore) Information-Journal. Observe him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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