Kevin Harvick’s COTA Prediction Fell Apart Real Quick With William Byron Exploiting Toyota’s Conflicts

William Byron recently etched his name in the NASCAR history books by becoming the first driver to rack up 10 wins with the next-gen cars. But, it took him 78 races to hit that 10-win mark in a next-gen car. On the journey, he managed to prove Kevin Harvick wrong in the latest race at COTA. Everyone’s been watching Byron keep up his solid performance over the past three years, but when it came to road courses, Kevin Harvick seemed to think the Toyota drivers had it in the bag. Well, Byron’s stellar performance at COTA just blew that prediction right out of the water.

Kevin Harvick was all in on Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell, thinking they’d shine at COTA

William Byron, who was lightning fast in practice and snagged the pole, totally owned Sunday’s race. He was in the lead for a whopping 42 of the 68 laps, securing his second win of the 2024 season. Even when Ross Chastain snatched the lead in the final stage, Byron wasn’t having it. He chased him down, reclaimed his spot, and even after a pit stop shuffle, he was back leading the pack with 17 laps to go. Holding off Christopher Bell, who had fresher tires and was hot on his heels, Byron crossed the finish line first by a slim margin, bagging the 12th victory of his career.

Despite Byron’s strong showing right from the get-go, Kevin Harvick was betting on a Toyota comeback, specifically from Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell. Chatting with the NASCAR on Fox crew, Harvick shared how he was convinced from the practice runs to the qualifiers that #54 and #20 were the ones to watch:

“From practice to qualifying to the race I thought that it was going to be the #54 and the #20. And then William Byron qualified on the poll and took off and I’m like oh I kept telling Clint I’m like he’s going to he’s going to start to fall back and the Toyotas are are going to start to March forward.”

But then, Kevin Harvick’s guess didn’t pan out when he saw Tyler Reddick, another Toyota driver from the 23XI racing team, losing ground to Christopher Bell, amidst William Byron not skipping a beat. “Man! He was he was on point from start to finish and put together a perfect race so I guess that really shouldn’t be a surprise,” Harvick admitted.

He also gave props to Byron for how he handled turn 8, which was pretty messy, just like a lot of drivers had warned before since they’d been asking for fixes on that part of the track.

Kevin Harvick can’t say enough good stuff about how William Byron dealt with turn 8 at COTA

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The Circuit of the Americas threw in some curveballs this year with its new pavement and boundaries that really tested drivers across all series. Plus, there was the tricky turn 8, where the quickest path had drivers dipping tires into the dirt, kicking up a mess on the track. Drivers including Denny Hamlin and Corey Lajoie have been saying something’s got to give with the dirt on the track making it slippery. But Byron just sailed through all that like a pro to snag the win.

Harvick shared, “Turn eight was dirty. They repacked the dirt before the Race where the trench was dug in the day before through through turn eight and um it was all back out on the racetrack before it was all said and done so it was a that was a treacherous Corner. And then we saw just we saw just a great Race by William Byron and I think it’s um he doesn’t get a lot of the credit that he deserves.”

Read More: William Byron Creates History, Showcases the Disparity in Performance in the NextGen Car With His COTA Win

Giving Byron his due for being rock solid on the superspeedways, Harvick added that Byron’s just consistently in the mix, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way.