After suffering bad luck in his first two races of 2021, William Byron was the hottest driver in the field till the halfway mark, but his results suffered as the playoffs neared.
Daytona International Speedway was not kind to Byron. He lost nine laps in the Daytona 500 and finished outside the top 25 with a 26th-place result. Depending on how one gauges such things, the next week was either worse or slightly better. He finished 33rd, but was only one lap off the pace.
There was a reason to be encouraged about his start, however; Byron sat on the outside of the front row for the Great American Race in one of the few 2021 events that had a qualification session. More importantly, Byron did not give in to the frustration that might have risen with those two disappointing finishes and he proved as much the following week when NASCAR hauled their cars south to Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Byron stayed in contact with the leaders for the first half of the race and then dominated from Lap 156 through the end of the 267-lap affair. He led 101 of the final 111 circuits and passed Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. in doing so. His Dixie Vodka 400 win locked him into the playoffs.
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The Homestead win might also have improved his confidence.
Byron went on a heater when NASCAR left Florida. For the next 10 races he was never worse than ninth. He might have extended that top-10 streak to 12 consecutive, tying Jeff Gordon‘s recent record in the process, but he sustained fairly major damage in the Texas Grand Prix on the Circuit of the Americas in the rain.
That streak was the longest of 2021.
Even with damage, he finished just outside the top 10 in 11th. The streak may have ended, but Byron remained strong. He finished fourth the following week in the Coke 600 – a race that was dominated by Hendrick Motorsports. An accident the following week at Sonoma Raceway momentarily set him back and then he rattled off consecutive third-place finishes at Nashville Superspeedway and Pocono Raceway.
He was 12th in the second half of the Pocono doubleheader, which meant that from Week 3 through Week 19 he had a perfect record of top-12 results.
Byron won the pole at Road America – which makes him a favorite to win more in 2022 when qualification returns – but his luck ran out during the race. He was shuffled to 33rd at Elkhart Lake and for the next seven races, struggled to find momentum. In seven race, he had five results of 20th or worse.
Two of those poor results came as the result of accidents. Worse still, they happened in the first two races of the playoffs. And while he had enough points to advance out of the Round of 16, he never fully recovered.
Oncer Byron was out of playoff contention, he found his rhythm again and rattled off two top-fives and swept the top 10 during the Round of 8. In the season finale at Phoenix Raceway, he may have been staying out of the way as two of his teammates, Larson and Chase Elliott, challenged for the championship.
We don’t necessarily expect Byron to accumulate the same impressive streak of top-10s this year, but he should be relevant to both bettors and fantasy players on a weekly basis. It might be worth giving up some of that concentrated strength so he can manage the entire season, and if he carries momentum into the final 10 races, he should be able to go deeper into the playoffs.
Three Best Tracks *
Pocono (9.1 in 8 attempts)
Watkins Glen (11.7 in 3)
Dover (12.9 in 7)
Three Worst Tracks *
Sonoma (26.3 in 3)
Daytona (22.8 in 8)
Darlington (20.9 in 7)
* Three or more starts
2021 Stats
Victories: Homestead
Top-fives: 12 (.333)
Top-10s: 20 (.556)
Top-15s: 23 (.638)
Top-20s: 27 (.750)
2021 Finishes at or above rank = 20 (55.6%)
Other Posts Featuring William Byron:
Fastest Laps Late and Early
Fastest on Restarts
Strong Openers
2021 Driver Rating
2021 Season End: 1-10
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