“Christopher Bell’s Michigan crash was the hardest in the Next Gen era,” Mike Forde revealed on the Hauler Talk podcast. That statement alone says everything about how violent the impact was. Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott were fighting for position during the FireKeepers Casino 400 when Elliott’s vehicle cut loose and quickly hooked Bell into the Turn 3 outside wall.

Despite having a broken left wrist, Bell managed to escape and was subsequently given the all-clear to resume racing. Although many applauded the Next Gen vehicle for shielding Bell, William Byron posed an unsettling query: did the vehicle that shielded Bell also contribute to the circumstances that initially made the collision so violent?

William Byron thinks the Next-Gen car created the same crash it survived

“So you’re seeing that crash because of the nature of the tire and the aero and everything with these cars, so it’s a violent impact. Fortunately, the car is capable of taking that and and you know Christopher was able to get out. So that’s a good thing. But that impact to me is way way larger than what we would have had in the past with a, you know, a bigger sideway and a different tire. So you got to think about it on both sides of the coin because yeah, the car took it. But yeah. I think that wreck was caused because of the nature of this car.”

That was William Byron trying to explain NASCAR journalist Joseph Springley why Christopher Bell’s Michigan wreck felt different.

The Next Gen car was built around a completely different philosophy than earlier NASCAR generations. Older Cup cars generated much of their downforce through upper-body elements like spoilers and naturally created more aerodynamic sideforce, helping stabilize cars when they got sideways.

The Next Gen car changed that. It introduced a symmetrical body that reduced sideforce, moved much of the downforce generation underneath the car using a rear diffuser and stepped splitter, added wider 18-inch aluminum wheels with lower-profile tires, and replaced the traditional solid rear axle with an independent rear suspension.

Those changes improved efficiency and modernized the platform. But they also changed how the car behaves at the limit. With less sideforce available to catch the car once it rotates, combined with underbody aero that becomes unstable at high yaw angles and wider tires that grip aggressively until they suddenly don’t, drivers have repeatedly described the cars as harder to save.

Add dirty air while racing close together, and small moments can turn into huge impacts. That’s essentially William Byron’s point. The safety advancements worked exactly as intended and Bell walked away and kept racing. But William Byron isn’t convinced the same accident would’ve become that violent in older generations of Cup cars.

Byron is fighting more than just bad luck in 2026

One year ago, William Byron arrived at Pocono sitting on top of the NASCAR Cup Series standings. This year? He showed up hanging onto 12th place in points and only 48 points above the Chase cut line with just 11 races remaining before the regular season ends. And Byron knows exactly how quickly things changed.

“It’s been a tough go. We were first in points last year at this time. Just had it figured out and we’ve had to relearn. We’ve had some really bad luck as well; we’ve gotten in three crashes. Those three DNFs are very tough to overcome with this points system.”

Well, this one quote pretty much sums up his season as the numbers tell the story. Over the last six races, Byron has posted three finishes of 30th or worse. Across his last four starts, he has managed just one top-10 finish. Some of it has been simple bad luck. But not all of it.

Like the rest of Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet’s Cup camp, Byron and the No. 24 group are learning an entirely new challenge in real time: the manufacturer’s updated 2026 body package. That means rebuilding setups, understanding airflow changes, and adjusting driving styles while still trying to score points every weekend.

There hasn’t been much room for experimentation. And Pocono hasn’t exactly been a comfort track lately. Last year, Byron’s weekend unraveled before the race even started after crashing in qualifying. He eventually limped home with a 27th-place finish.

Now he returns needing something much different. A clean weekend, a fast car, and maybe proof that the No. 24 team is finally starting to understand this year’s package. Because if William Byron wants to stop talking about what they had figured out last season, Pocono feels like the place where they need to start figuring it out again.