William Byron Gets Brutally Honest on Hendrick Motorsports’ Ongoing Playoff Woes

“I’ve talked about it a lot. I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.” William Byron’s dejected words were justifiable after a lackluster Southern 500 outing. Last week, none of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers could finish better than 17th. Ranging from a 40-second pit stop to a lack of pace in rebound runs, the volley of problems seemed endless. Unfortunately, part of those problems persisted in Gateway as well.

The NASCAR Cup Series visited World Wide Technology Raceway recently, holding a playoff race at the Illinois track for the first time. Although this was good news for many drivers, it was not for the HMS fold. Historically known to falter on short, flat tracks, the team faced challenges – and William Byron had to break his silence.

William Byron rolls out his disappointment

From the Darlington perspective, Rick Hendrick’s drivers had a respectable rebound in Gateway. Three drivers finished in the top 12, with Chase Elliott netting a remarkable 3rd-place finish. However, Elliott’s aggression was visible, as he had to cover ground with just 9 points between himself and the cutoff line. On lap 36, the No. 9 made contact with Josh Berry, leaving the latter’s No. 21 Ford spinning. Similarly, Kyle Larson made contact with Ryan Blaney on lap 134 en route to a 12th-place finish. Alex Bowman suffered pit road miscues and a speeding penalty and finished 26th. William Byron started the race in 6th place, but could never optimize on that start.

Eventually, Ty Dillon’s caution on lap 208 was the final nail in Hendrick Motorsports’ coffin. It jumbled the drivers’ strategy and prevented them from potentially running a fuel approach to the front of the racing field. That is why William Byron’s expression was glum in a post-race interview, as an interviewer asked him about HMS’ overall history in Gateway. The team has only three top tens in 2022-2024, and the 2025 attempt seemed no better. Byron said, “Just need to get a better balance on our race car. It seemed like we had a pretty good pace, but we just couldn’t get it balanced. So it’s really hard to see what kind of pace we had.”

As for William Byron himself, the race was not up to his ideal. Just a few weeks ago, Byron was high on his Iowa victory and his regular-season championship – but that euphoria seems to have drained after Darlington and Gateway. He reflected on his 11th-place run, which the No. 24 team tried to make better with a fuel strategy. He said, “I don’t know, I don’t think we were gonna make it on fuel. But I mean, yeah, just a tough day. I thought that we were better than we’ve been. But we just couldn’t get the balance this weekend. So that part sucked.”

While William Byron looked at HMS’ Gateway with a negative light, his teammate differed.

Wearing rose-tinted glasses

Since 2022, Hendrick Motorsports drivers have clinched 38 race trophies. But during the same three-year period, none of them has been able to clinch the championship. All three Bill France trophies went to Team Penske instead, as that team is notably better on short tracks. To survive Gateway’s 1.25-mile layout, the team was relying on Kyle Larson‘s lone tire test at the track in June. And it paid dividends for mainly two drivers in the team – Chase Elliott and Larson himself. The latter started the race in 2nd place, briefly taking the lead from Denny Hamlin soon after. Larson also finished stage 1 in second place before losing pace. He rubbed fenders with Ryan Blaney and suffered a strategic misstep due to Ty Dillon’s caution. Yet he chose to view it optimistically.

Countering William Byron’s stance, Kyle Larson gleaned positives from HMS’ Gateway run. After all, a similar short track is on the horizon at Phoenix Raceway, which will determine HMS’ three-year rivalry with Penske. Larson said, “I definitely think we took a massive step in the right direction. Would love to get to Phoenix to get the opportunity to see. Obviously, we’re going to race Phoenix, but would love to race it in the final four. Proud of my team. It’s been a struggle here and on this particular style track, but it’s really been a struggle for us at a lot of places lately. Not the finish, but I feel like we were back to looking like the 5 team today.”

Evidently, HMS is moving on from Gateway with contradicting opinions. We can only wait and see if they can make up for their mistakes in the following playoff races.