Hendrick Motorsports is cruising in the playoffs. After a dominant display by William Byron in the Round of 12 races, Kyle Larson secured his place in Phoenix after winning a nail-biter in the Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas. Homestead-Miami coming next in line augurs well for Rick Hendrick, as his #5 and #24 teams have an excellent track record at the venue in recent years. With a string of good results to be expected, HMS has made great use of both its qualified drivers’ abilities.

However, following Larson’s win at Las Vegas Speedway, William Byron expressed discontent over his performance after the race. The same emotions could be seen in Byron’s words on his team radio as Kyle Larson shined in stage 1 of the Las Vegas race to secure a P1 finish.

William Byron was dissatisfied with his performance in Stage 1

On a scorching afternoon of intense racing, Kyle Larson led 133 of the 267 laps to cross the 1000-lap mark in 2023. The statistic shows how good the 31-year-old has been this season, and even more so in the playoffs. With this win, Kyle Larson also dethroned William Byron in the eyes of bookmakers, who have had the #24 driver with the highest chances of winning the championship. Although, in one way, Larson’s win might have fueled a fire inside Byron, it could also possibly steal some spotlight from Byron.

William Byron was considered an outright favorite after his brute force in the #24 had everyone beaten in the Round of 12. Now that Larson has slowly begun to build up the pressure with a win, the North Carolina native will have to outperform him on a favorable Homestead track, where he won in 2021. NASCAR’s team radio releases through a video on YouTube also show the emotions of different drivers as they battle on the tracks.

While the #5 team congratulated him on the important stage win and a P1 restart, Byron seemed to be disappointed that he couldn’t catch up to Larson despite starting the race at P3. Byron exclaimed, “F**k! What the f**k?” in an expletive-laden display of shock. These words also might have come as a reaction to him missing out on important stage points or him lacking the necessary pace and eventually dropping to P6 at the end of the race.

Considering he is still the #1 seeded driver in the playoffs, he’ll have to defend his position from an incoming surge from Larson and other spearheads like Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., or Denny Hamlin.

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An ‘average’ day for Byron as teammate Kyle Larson grabs the championship spot

Byron has easily been the best driver of the season. With six wins to his name this season, including a series-high number of five in the regular season, it is hard to undermine his talent amidst former champions and veterans in the playoffs. Byron is a perfect blueprint for HMS to groom if they wish to replicate the success of Byron’s predecessor, Jeff Gordon. What bothered the youngster most was that he was able to dominate the same track in the regular season and went on to win consecutive races after winning at Las Vegas.

Reflecting on his performance at Las Vegas, he said, “No, I think, I mean, we’re only nine points ahead, so we’ve got a lot of work to do. So, we’ll see, I mean, we definitely would have liked to have a better day today and just kind of had an average day.”

On an average day of racing for him, Byron finished P6 due to Ryan Blaney being disqualified to P36 for a faulty left-front shock in the #12 Mustang. With NASCAR rescinding the penalty, Blaney has been reinstated at P6 and Byron goes down to P7. Having said that, Byron currently sits in 2nd place in the playoff standings, 7 points behind the Las Vegas winner and 7 points ahead of regular season champion Martin Truex Jr.

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It remains to be seen how the race at Homestead unfolds since Kyle Larson is the defending champion of the venue, and Byron won it two years earlier, in 2021. Will the Hendrick Motorsports duo clash against each other, or will Larson extend a helping hand toward Larson after securing his place in Phoenix?