Rick Hendrick’s Star Rivals Teammate’s Sentiments, Greenlights Probable Tire-Management Return for Bristol Playoffs

The talk of the town at the Bristol Motor Speedway last Sunday were tires that evidently wore out more easily than anyone could have expected. While the Cup race got a lot of positive reactions from the fans and insiders, the drivers had mixed feelings about it. And that feeling mimicked the circuit’s winningest team, Hendrick Motorsports’ racers, where some believed it to be an inconvenience, like the #24 car driver William Byron, and others quite enjoyed it, including the #48 car, Alex Bowman. After the race, the duo was clearly not agreeing about their experiences of the race.

The 30-year-old finished the highest out of all of Rick Hendrick’s racers, finishing P4. However, what’s interesting is how a pattern has emerged after the race that those who finished high up seem to not speak too negatively about how the race went, and those who didn’t have a different opinion.

Highest-finishing Hendrick Motorsports Bristol star enjoyed the control aspect

For Hendrick Motorsports, it was certainly not a good day overall. Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, and William Byron finished P5, P8, and P35 respectively, with the latter having one of the worst days in his time in the Cup Series. After the race, Byron was seen speaking out against the extreme tire wear. It was not like he was against it but the driver opined that they needed to get that information beforehand so that the mechanics could make the necessary adjustments. Alex Bowman, on the other hand, had a different opinion.

“That’s way more in the driver’s control than even a normal week is. Like a normal Bristol race where you run 500 laps wide open as hard as you can. If your car is good, you’re good and if your car is not good, you struggle. Perfect pitstops are great, if you have one bad pitstop, it’s almost impossible to pass your way back up through there so…having that in your hands as a race car driver and being able to make the right decisions on how you save your tires and when you push and what you’re feeling I think is something that I enjoy so I’m all good with it but I think there are some mixed feelings on it,” the 30-year-old said after the race.

The difference in opinion varied a lot from the best-finishing Hendrick Motorsports driver to the worst at the Bristol Motor Speedway as William Byron also made his feelings clear to veteran journalist Bob Pockrass.

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Reigning Daytona 500 winner is against uninformed tire wear in playoffs

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The driver of the #24 car believes that while something like this may be acceptable in the early part of the regular season, it could not happen without any prior information in the playoffs, which would definitely prove to be detrimental to them. Byron booked his place in the last 16 of the competition after winning his first-ever Daytona 500 back in February and is now looking for a maiden Cup Series crown. But what has rendered him sleepless right now is the possibility that another instance like Bristol might make a comeback soon.

“We definitely need to know what we’re getting into before the weekend to be fair. The regular season is one thing to have races that don’t go according to plan as exciting and entertaining, but I don’t think it’s fair to the competitors and teams to not know what they’re getting into going there. Probably a tire test coming up, hopefully having an idea from that, what the tire wear is going to be like, and if it’s the same, then so be it. I think it was a really random series of events,” he said.

The Cup Series will go to the Bristol Motor Speedway in the fall for the final race of the first round of the playoffs, so there will be a lot of drivers with immense pressure hanging over their heads. It will be interesting to see how that race turns out.

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