6 days agoWilliam Byron entered Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas as the points leader and expanded his lead over Christopher Bell to 29 points after a fourth-place finish. Byron entered the race as one of the pre-race favorites and did briefly lead twice for 10 laps after passing Bubba Wallace then Michael McDowell for the lead before his teammate Kyle Larson passed him both times. Larson looked faster than Byron for most of the race, but Byron was rarely far behind and ended up passing all the drivers on the main pit strategy by race's end. However, the usual contenders out-thought themselves in choosing to pit during the eighth caution and many others didn't, which (along with contact from Ross Chastain) prevented them from catching the unusual podium finishers of Josh Berry, Daniel Suárez, and Ryan Preece on the other strategy.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
1 week agoHendrick Motorsports driver William Byron will start eighth for this week's Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the Pennzoil 400. It will be the sixth consecutive race at Las Vegas where Byron will start inside the top 10. In 14 races at Vegas in his Cup career, Byron has seven top-10 finishes, including each of the last four races at the site, and one win. The No. 24 Chevrolet driver currently leads the regular season standings with one win and three top-10 finishes after four races this year. In practice, Byron ranked first in overall lap averages while ranking among the top three fastest in all other categories. Byron is one of the top favorites to compete for the win this week and should be heavily considered for all formats by DFS players.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
2 weeks agoAfter winning the pole for Sunday's race at Phoenix, William Byron led 83 of the race's 94 laps. Although it looked like Joey Logano was faster in the early stages of the race and they exchanged the lead four times, Byron began to dominate after Logano was penalized for jumping the second restart. However, Byron got passed by Austin Cindric when he had the advantage of the optional tires and then got beaten out of the pits by Christopher Bell on a caution-flag pit stop and he never led again. He made a bid for victory by taking his final set of optional tires sooner than most of the other contenders, but got caught a lap down when a caution came out for debris from Bubba Wallace's crash. Nonetheless, he made the best of a bad situation and recovered to eventually finish sixth, allowing him to expand his points lead from two points to 13.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
2 weeks agoWilliam Byron will definitely be a contender in the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway this weekend. The Hendrick Motorsports driver looked stout in practice on Saturday, ranking second-fastest in 30-lap average, and then Byron went out and followed that up by winning the pole in qualifying later that afternoon. As far as track record goes at Phoenix, Byron has been one of the best in the desert in the Next Gen era. Looking at the last five races here, he's finished sixth or better four times, and got a win in the spring race here two years ago. Byron has also led a combined 178 laps over the last four events at this track. As far as DFS contests go, Byron is a great candidate to grab early dominator points and he should be able to contend for the race win, too. At $10,000 on DraftKings, he has a hefty price tag, but has a good chance of making it into the optimal lineup despite that.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Jayski
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