William Byron: NASCAR Cup playoffs 2025 preview

No one is entering the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs in a better position than William Byron.

Byron clinched the regular season championship a week early with a 12th-place finish at Richmond Raceway despite a wreck that clinched him the title over teammate Chase Elliott.

A week to ice and not stress about points at Daytona, one of the most volatile tracks on the schedule, was good for Byron — and bad for the field.

Strengths and Weaknesses for William Byron

Byron’s No. 24 team has been the strongest team consistently throughout the season. They were never lower than second in the point standings and led after 21 of the 26 races in the regular season. They also earned the most stage points through 25 races (232).

Meanwhile, Byron has one of the highest stage top-10 counts of the field (35 in 53 stages) and is up there for most races led (15) and tied most races leading the most laps (four races).

Unlike Blaney and Hamlin, Byron has no weak track type. He runs strong on essentially every track type.

Unlike Hamlin, however, he has struggled with closing out races. He has had four races this season where he led at least 80 laps and didn’t win, including Darlington in April and Michigan in June – both of which Hamlin won.

Byron led every lap at Darlington in April until crew chief Rudy Fugle’s decision to pit on lap 244 of 293 allowed others to jump on an alternate tire strategy and pass him. He finished second to Hamlin.

At Michigan in June, Byron led 83 of the first 147 laps. Then, a caution shuffled Byron into traffic that Carson Hocevar emerged from more quickly. Byron passed Hocevar but at the expense of his tires and fuel, as Hamlin grabbed the lead in the closing laps and won while Byron finished 28th – out of gas (a similar instance happened to Byron at Indianapolis)

Hamlin also finished ahead of Byron at Phoenix in March after Byron started strong and led laps from the pole. At Charlotte in May, Byron held strong against Hamlin but finished second to Ross Chastain after leading 283 of 400 laps.

William Byron in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs

Executing the perfect strategy and finishing strong is going to be what gets Byron to his first Bill France Cup. A strong fuel mileage win at Iowa Speedway and a strong run in the strategy-laden race at Richmond Raceway show the team is getting better at the right time, to go for the Cup at Phoenix.

Before he gets to Phoenix, Byron will have to contend with these nine tracks, including three where he is a past winner:

• Round of 16: Darlington, Gateway, Bristol
• Round of 12: New Hampshire, Kansas, Charlotte Roval
• Round of 8: Las Vegas, Talladega, Martinsville

Byron leads the field in playoff points so a clean first round should be no problem. The second round has Charlotte Roval – where he hasn’t finished worse than third in the last two races – and Kansas where he finished second and led 24 laps last year.

The third round is right up Byron’s sleeve, including Talladega. Byron hasn’t finished worse than 15th in the NextGen era, including five consecutive finishes of seventh or better.

At Phoenix, it’ll all be about executing the perfect race to go with his speed – and beating the three challengers who come to play.

William Byron playoff overview

2025 stats:

• Two wins
  • Daytona 500, Iowa
• Nine top-five finishes
• 13 top-10 finishes
• Two poles
  • Phoenix, Darlington
• 915 of 6,228 laps led
• 13.9 average finish
• Three DNFs
  • Atlanta in June (crash), Chicago in July (clutch issue), Dover in July (crash)

Strengths:

• Consistency
• Strong performance
• Resilience

Weaknesses:

• Closing out races