William Byron Arguably Pre-Race Favorite At Las Vegas
1 year agoWilliam Byron qualified third for Sunday's race at Las Vegas, a track where he dominated in March for his first win of the season. Byron is the fastest driver in the Cup Series this year with a speed percentile of 79.73% and was also the fastest in his Las Vegas win. His trend this season has been to suddenly emerge with the lead on a restart after a mediocre green-flag run prior to that, but the Las Vegas race wasn't an example of that. Byron led 172 of the first 185 laps before Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, and Kyle Larson beat him out of the pits. Although he couldn't get around Larson again until a later pit stop exchange, they were very evenly matched. With both Larson and Byron qualifying in the top three for tomorrow's race, both will likely pick up where they left off in the spring.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference