William Byron Unable to Fully Recover From Qualifying Crash at Kansas
7 months agoWilliam Byron had an unusually mediocre run at Kansas Speedway this past weekend despite his teammate, Kyle Larson, winning the race. Byron started in the back after a qualifying crash but struggled to move up through the pack even though passing was not very difficult, especially on restarts. He managed to break into the top 10 at the start of Stage 3, running as high as seventh from laps 191 to 196, but he pitted on a caution on lap 202, which wasn't the optimal strategy and he never made it back higher than 14th, eventually falling to 22nd-place by the end. Byron ranked only 15th-fastest in speed and was the slowest of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers in the race, an unusual occurrence. Perhaps the damage from his qualifying crash continued to affect him in the race, but since he already has three regular season wins, it really doesn't matter much.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference