William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Talladega Superspeedway. | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
NASCAR CUP SERIESTALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAYTEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTESOCTOBER 18, 2025 |
William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Talladega Superspeedway. | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
| Media Availability Quotes: How have you been able to get past last week and move forward in the playoffs?“Yeah, I mean, just reflection and just looking at everything for a day or so, and then really just diving into Talladega and trying to look ahead. I feel like there’s never a truer time to embrace one week at a time than now. We’re just really trying to dive into the details of this weekend and see how I can do a better job in the draft, and so far, I feel good about my preparation. Last spring was a good race for us. But yeah, spent a couple days kind of stewing on it a little bit, but then get past it and move on.” How much did you focus on going back and looking at what happened and trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again versus just getting past it and moving forward? “Yeah, I mean, it’s such a freak deal that it’s very hard to go back and be like, how does this not happen again. Monday morning quarterback, had I known the situation and what was happening, you know, you can say — oh, would you react differently, would you go right, would you slow down quicker, whatever. But in the moment, there were no signs that that was happening. So in a split second like that, once you realize it, it was too late. But when you go back and you know that that’s going to happen, it’s a lot different to evaluate it and look at it. So you have to make sure you’re not too critical of yourself in that instance because you didn’t have any expectation that that was going to happen, and that’s why it played out the way it did and that’s why it was such a violent crash. From inside the car, there was no sign… there was no wave and there was no difference in line. Just looking at the closing rate and seeing him start to slow down, maybe I could have realized that sooner, but that’s all Monday morning when you know looking back that that’s going to happen. So in the moment, I just saw a car; I thought he missed the bottom and I thought, man, and then as soon as I realized he was slowing, boom, it’s too late. I tried to miss him left and that’s why I got a little sideways and on the brakes. But yeah, once I knew he was slowing down, I was maybe four car lengths back. Just a very, very tough situation, but I’ve moved on from it and feel really good about this weekend.” There’s 36 races a year and you’re down to the last three. You haven’t had a break since Easter. The grind’s wearing on a lot of people. But because of the nature of the playoffs, does the grind wear on you at all, or do you just singularly focus on week to week and it doesn’t really affect you because of the playoffs?“Yeah, you’ve got to be mentally strong. You can look at it one or two ways. You can be like, oh, I’m so close to the end and I just want to get to the end. But in our situation, we have a great opportunity. We have an opportunity that doesn’t come about every year, possibly. It’s very difficult to make the Round of Eight and get to this point. So I look at it like, yeah, my season and my life is going to drastically change in two, three weeks, and I’m going to be able to do all these different things and enjoy life as a person. But I think right now, the grind is kind of diving into the details… what can I do these next really two weeks because my season will be over soon, if I don’t do what I need to do the next two weeks. So just try to embrace it; put everything I can into the next couple weeks of preparation. For good or bad, it’ll all be over in a few weeks. So just got to look at it from that perspective.” Your average finish here in the last five races is 4.4. How did you get so proficient at running this track, or should I say lucky?“Yeah, there’s always an element of luck here, but it’s just trying to put yourself in the right positions. There are movements you make every lap that create the results, so it’s being in the right positions. It’s managing fuel. It’s the strategy side of things. My team has done a good job executing the strategy. And then when we get on the other side of the pit cycle, we’ve made good decisions. I think the spring is the first time at Talladega that I felt like I had an opportunity to win and didn’t win. I felt like I was in a position to control that race. So, I really looked at that and tried to understand, okay, why did it not go perfect? What lost me control the race and gave it to Austin (Cindric). Him and (Ryan) Preece were on the front row at the end, so how did I lose that position? That was kind of nice to have a race here that I was in control and in control where I wanted to be. It was maybe the first one that I didn’t feel like I close out. Since the Next Gen car was introduced, only four drivers have been to the Championship Four twice. Do you think that that’s the car more so than anything else? You would see guys that would be Championship Four regulars and for you just to be among that group of three other drivers that have made that final four group twice, why do you think that it’s such a low number?“So no one’s made it three times, is that right? I mean, that’s interesting… I didn’t know that. I think it’s the parody throughout the field. Particularly when you look at the top-eight cars, there was not a big difference in bonus points, playoff points, coming in here. Really there are about five guys that were pretty even on playoff points and it kind of changed in the first round. The No. 12 (Ryan Blaney) got up there, sneaked a few stage wins in and the race win at New Hampshire. So I don’t know, the seeding has kind of changed a lot this year. There’s not really a clear number one. I think that’s made it just super important to execute. That’s why last week was a big bummer because it was probably a 35-point swing with that result. Yeah, it just puts a premium on execution. I think you’re going to see that in the next couple of weeks, as well. You just don’t have those big buffers like when Martin was doing it. They could get 60 playoff points and you just don’t have that big buffer anymore.” I assume it was probably just bitterness over what happened last week. So how do you get over it, like do you golf? Is it talking to somebody? Is it listening to music? Just how do you get over such a frustration? “Yeah, I actually wasn’t bitter. I was just probably in a bit of shock is what you guys saw after the race. I just couldn’t believe it. Like, I mean, we do this so often… we pit so often. We do these things. It’s so routine and it was so not routine that time. The result was not what I expected, so I think that was the emotion… it was shock. But then during the week, it’s just, how do you dive into next week? Yes, there are things I do off the track that get my mind away from the sport. But it’s really just about doing the things you’ve been doing and the routine you’ve been doing. It doesn’t just go away in one day. It just kind of slowly as we get towards Sunday, it’s like –- Hey, you know, we got another race Sunday and it’s time to get going here.” Does this happening kind of impact how you feel about the playoff system as a whole?“I can’t answer that question yet. I got to see how the next month unfolds. I think looking back in the truck series when we won seven races and blew an engine in the second to last race, we didn’t have an opportunity to come back from that. Now we have an opportunity to do something about our result. And so yeah, I want to embrace that. I want to see how the next couple of weeks ago; put everything I can into it and see what happens. I’m not about to complain about the format just because of what happened. I think there’s still opportunity out there, and I think that would be kind of a losing mindset to look at it that way.” You typically give off kind of this mellow, cool vibe. Along the lines of what Bob (Pockrass) was asking you, you said you did your typical things. How do you get over such a disappointment like that because you’re kind of a ‘Steady Eddie’ anyway, but how do you process that? Is that also a result of the maturity that you have racing in the series that you don’t let something like that really mess you up?“Yeah, I just think I don’t really show the emotions that I’m feeling at the race track because I’m trying to process them, as well. I’m just a very introspective person and I feel like that kind of perspective comes to me throughout the week. I do that on my own time. I don’t tweet about it. I don’t talk to you guys about it. But I do all that work internally and amongst people that I trust. So yeah, all that goes on, you just don’t see it right after the race. But yeah, I obviously do that processing, as everyone needs to.” How different is Martinsville in the spring to Martinsville in fall? It doesn’t always seem like there’s a carryover from who’s strong to one to the other… “Yeah, it does seem like there’s a big gap between those two races. You know, you kind of make the mistake of trying to copy the spring a lot of times and it doesn’t work. I think it’s just one of those places you have to approach with an open mind. You maybe know how to get around that race track and maybe you know how to crew chief that race track, but it changes every time. It does seem like the weather and the tire changes have affected that, where the tire changes just enough or the weather changes just enough where the notes are obsolete. I think it’s such a short track that you’re going around that race track so many times that the rhythm and cadence that just one small thing being off changes the whole game. We have to do our prep next week and really understand what we’re going to face. But we probably don’t fully understand the balance until we get there that weekend.” |