When William Byron kick-started the 2024 Cup Series season with his win at the Daytona 500, all eyes were on Hendrick Motorsport’s young driver for the regular season. Unfortunately, that momentum didn’t last much longer, with the #24 Chevrolet falling outside of the top 20 on multiple occasions since then.

Fast-forward to the tail end of the regular season, and the initial points leader now stands five positions behind teammate Kyle Larson. Despite equaling his HMS counterpart in wins this season and bringing home more top-ten finishes, Byron is nowhere near the front of the standings. This begs the question; what seems to be plaguing the #24 HMS driver whilst the #9 and #5 round out the top two?

William Byron highlights Hendrick Motorsports’ reduced expectations from the #24’s regular season

As things stand, William Byron has 3 wins, 5 top-fives, and 9 top-tens, compared to Larson’s 3, 7, and 8 respectively. Although these results are stellar on paper for any driver, that isn’t the case for those hoping to compete against Kyle Larson. The current regular season points leader, despite missing out on the Coca-Cola 600, has a 66-point lead on Byron. Similarly, his teammate, Chase Elliott, also sits second in the standings, with 547 points, much higher than Byron’s 495.

Although Alex Bowman is the lowest HMS driver on the regular season standings, William Byron’s wins this season mean his position outside the top five just isn’t satisfactory. So after Kyle Larson won last weekend to further cement his dominance, William Byron had no choice but to accept defeat. The #24 HMS driver revealed his side of the garage’s expectations for the coming 10 weeks.

When asked about his hopes to win the regular season, Byron shared with FrontStretch, “I don’t think we’re really looking at that. We’re just looking at trying to run more consistently and better. We’ve had speed in the last five races at different times of the weekend and I feel like, still, Charlotte was our best race in the last handful of races. We had really good speed there.”

According to Byron, the #24 garage has been hard at work, trying their level best to improve consistency. After all, if a victory is followed by a twentieth-place finish, it doesn’t bode well in the long run. Ultimately, Byron believes the key to turning around his fortunes lies in stage wins.

The 26-year-old shared, “I feel like we’re maybe not scoring the stage points that we need to, so that would be the emphasis, to just consistently perform throughout the race and try to score maximum points. Last year I think, we had a lot of forty to fifty-point days, and so we’re just trying to get days like that.” With the #24 garage shifting focus from wins to consistency throughout the race, it’s safe to say that the #24 garage has given up on hopes of winning the regular season championship.

However, while Byron may want the crew to focus on stage wins and consistency, that may be difficult to achieve at the newly repaved Iowa Speedway.

Kyle Larson’s tire test at Iowa leaves William Byron confused

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This weekend is all set to contain uncharted waters for the Next-Gen cars at Iowa Speedway. With the short track making its inaugural Cup Series debut, all eyes have been on NASCAR’s effort to rejuvenate and restore the returning Xfinity Series track. After facing a few harsh winters on the sidelines, Iowa Speedway’s surface began to deteriorate, prompting Elton Sawyer and Co. to abandon their idea of leaving the track untouched.

So for Iowa’s return, NASCAR had to repave a majority of the turns, creating an inconsistent groove that many drivers and teams fear could throw curveballs throughout the weekend. To negate these fears, NASCAR and Goodyear scheduled a tire test which saw Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell, and Kyle Larson collect data as they lapped the repaved circuit.

Although the intention was to give teams and drivers an idea of how the tarmac would hold up, William Byron believes that much will remain unknown until the green flag drops. Byron said, “I’ve watched some in-car cameras from Kyle’s test and have a decent idea of what the pace is gonna be like, but they were on a lot of different tire sets there, and it was only three cars.  I know I’m gonna be in fourth gear, that’s about all I know.”

According to Byron, finding out where to lift and where to floor the throttle just isn’t possible without experiencing the track firsthand. Going over Larson’s test results, Byron felt that there wasn’t much to note before the tail end. He concluded, “As it is with any new race track, you just have to go out there and feel it, and hopefully make the correct adjustments over fifty minutes to get something close. Hard to learn much from their balance up until well, the end, and then I felt like they were pretty comparable to whoever else was there, I think Bell and Keselowski.” 

After taking a look at William Byron’s uncertainty surrounding Iowa, what are your thoughts on the #24 HMS garage’s resurgence?