William Byron Pays a Heavy Price for Not Listening to His Hendrick Motorsports Teammate Chase Elliott’s Advice at COTA

Even though he’s been out of the action for a while now, his racing instincts are just as sharp as they were when he was behind the wheel of the #9 car. This much Chase Elliott recently proved during his brief appearance inside the FOX Sports booth in the Cup race at the Circuit of The Americas. Elliott, who’s been sidelined with an injury from a snowboarding accident from a few weeks ago, joined Mike Joy, Clint Bowyer, and Kurt Busch via a video call from Colorado.

And it was during one of the infinite number of restarts towards the end of the race that the Hendrick Motorsports driver provided some insights into the action, in particular for his teammate William Byron.

Chase Elliott on what he’d do if he was William Byron

Byron, who was lined up behind leader Tyler Reddick during an overtime restart on Sunday, was naturally in a very tough and vulnerable spot. And this wasn’t lost on his teammate Chase Elliott, who, all the way from Colorado, called out what Byron should’ve done.

“If I’m Wiliam, I think I’d really consider the second row inside. Because I think if you’re on that front row, if somebody is gonna bulldoze Tyler out of the way, which, odds are pretty good, I think Tyler’s in a really tough spot being the leader,” Elliott said. “If you’re on the outside of that first row, you’re going with him, and you’re likely gonna be in a lot of trouble too.”

“I think if you’re Wiliam, you’ll think about lining up third, putting up an offence, and hoping for the best. Tyler’s blown two of these restarts today, going wide out of (Turn) 1.” 

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William Byron claims COTA was his hardest ever race

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After he was on the pole, starting the race, ran 2nd during the overtime(s), and finished in 5th at the end, William Byron was pretty exhausted. So much so that he called this particular race at COTA, the one that made him work hard the most in his career.

“It was hard as hell,” Byron said as per RACER. “It was the hardest I’ve worked in a race car, I think. Honestly, not the hardest I’ve worked, but just the amount of heat and the amount of (carbon monoxide) or whatever it is in the cars.”

As for the race winner, Tyler Reddick, Byron conceded that the 23XI Racing driver was just “better.” 

“When we got that run with nine laps to go, he was able to pass me clean and gap me. I did a lot of blocking, a lot of protecting under braking, but he was just better,” he added.

What do you think about Elliot’s advice? Should have Byron taken up on that?

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