{"id":129351,"date":"2025-09-08T18:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T18:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/129351\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T18:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T18:18:10","slug":"william-byron-reflects-on-strategy-failing-at-gateway-tough-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/129351\/","title":{"rendered":"William Byron reflects on strategy failing at Gateway: ‘Tough day’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last month has been mediocre for William Byron and the No. 24 team. The group hasn\u2019t been nearly as quick. Byron, who won the regular season championship, looks sluggish to start the NASCAR <\/a>Playoffs. He wasn\u2019t all that happy with his P11 finish at Gateway. <\/p>\n

William Byron has suffered in the past from summer slumps. It appears that the slump has lingered this season, despite his win at Iowa just a few weeks ago. While Joe Gibbs Racing is rising<\/a>, Hendrick Motorsports is not doing so well. <\/p>\n

The speed hasn\u2019t been consistent. Performance has been \u201cmeh.\u201d In his post-race comments on pit road, you could tell there was frustration. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t think we were going to make it on fuel, but uh, I mean, just a tough day,\u201d Byron said when asked about the final caution, via Frontstretch<\/a>. \u201cI thought we were better, better than we\u2019ve been. But we just couldn\u2019t get the balance this weekend, so that part sucked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase Elliott was the only Hendrick Motorsports driver to finish in the top-10. He came away P3. William Byron was asked about Hendrick\u2019s performance overall at a track they have struggled at in recent years. He was more focused on his own performance. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust need to get a better balance on our race car,\u201d Byron explained. \u201cI think it seemed like we had pretty good pace, but yeah, we just couldn\u2019t get it balanced, so it\u2019s really hard to see what kind of pace we had.\u201d <\/p>\n

It has not been a great start to the NASCAR Playoffs for HMS. Alex Bowman is in a must-win position already. For now, William Byron, Chase Elliott, and Kyle Larson are safe. But can they afford more average finishes? <\/p>\n

William Byron has largely struggled in the summer<\/p>\n

The race at Iowa is appearing to be more and more an anomaly. It was a fuel-saving win, and when you look at the results throughout he summer before that, it is clear that there is an issue with the 24 team. <\/p>\n

Stage points were a major reason why Byron won the regular-season championship. That doesn\u2019t always mean you have a fast car, though. Outside of Iowa, Byron\u2019s last top-five finish on an oval came at Nashville Superspeedway. There have been issues outside Byron\u2019s control for the struggles, but until that speed comes back to the 24 car, this slump will only continue. <\/p>\n

Bristol is going to be a major test. William Byron and his Hendrick teammates, outside of Kyle Larson, need to step up and perform. Bowman has to win, Elliott can\u2019t have a major mistake, and Byron is not completely safe either. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last month has been mediocre for William Byron and the No. 24 team. The group hasn\u2019t been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-129351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}