- William Byron escaped two major crashes and still finished 12th in the Daytona 500, keeping his three-peat hopes alive deep into the final run.
- Early damage left him fighting a compromised car all day, saying, “Our right-front suspension was bent,” Byron said, “so our car was tracking weirdly and super loose and tight at the same time.”
- He briefly reached the front late, but did not trust the car enough to throw big blocks, and navigated chaos on the final lap to bring home a steady result.
William Byron arrived on Sunday chasing a third straight Harley J. Earl Trophy, and his shot nearly ended before the race settled in. A spin by BJ McLeod on Lap 5 triggered a multi-car crash that swept up Byron. He hit the rear bumper of Justin Allgaier and the No. 24 car ricocheted off the wall, taking significant damage on the right side.
Byron explained the immediate problem once the repairs began. “Our right-front suspension was bent,” Byron said, “so our car was tracking weirdly and super loose and tight at the same time.”
Even with the setbacks, he kept grinding forward. By the end of the opening stage, Byron had rallied to 13th, one of the drivers forced into multiple pit stops inside the first 65 laps just to stay in the fight.
He stayed out of trouble for a stretch, then got caught in another huge moment on Lap 122. A 20-car pileup broke out when Allgaier faded up on Denny Hamlin near the front, and Byron took more damage while trying to survive the mess.
After several trips down pit road, Byron’s team got the car back into the lead draft as fuel strategy started to shape the final phase. He was among seven cars to pit on Lap 188 in a last sequence of green flag stops, then rejoined the pack when the field came back together. Soon after, a Toyota crash with nine laps left set up the last dash to the finish.
One lap after the restart, Byron was pushed toward the front, then found himself there for real when Brad Keselowski helped move him ahead. In that moment, Byron weighed the risk of blocking with a car that was no longer right.
“I thought I was in the catbird seat,” Byron said of taking the lead. “I felt everyone was going to continue to block and move up off the bottom. I had Brad, who is a really good pusher, with me. I’m like, ‘man, this could be perfect. We could get lined up, and I might get pushed too far out front.’ It didn’t materialize that way. The bottom was a struggle all day.
“All of those guys blew past us, even when we were connected and pushing. Unfortunate, but I don’t feel like I could have taken the top lane and hung on to my car — it was pretty beat up.”
The final lap brought another wave of chaos. Byron had to lift entering Turn 1 when race leader Carson Hocevar was turned in front of the field. Byron escaped low, dropped below the yellow line, then re-entered and clipped the apron before sliding back up onto the racing surface. He gathered it up and fought through to finish 12th, his first top 15 result in the Great American Race outside of his wins in the previous two years.
Byron said the late run still felt like a lift to open the season, even without the trophy.
“I couldn’t believe we had a shot at the end,” Byron said. “I thought now I have a shot lining up on the front two rows. That’s all you can ask for, really. I got (Tyler Reddick) out to a decent lead on the restart, and the bottom was the place to be. There was one time I got clear and probably could have taken the middle, but I didn’t know if my car could handle the pushes up there. I had to keep my car straight, so I felt if I went to make a block, I would wreck.
“The Lap (5) crash, I thought, was going to be the end of our competitive day, and we did a good job patching it up.”
