RICHMOND, Va. -- It was a wild turn of events for William Byron on Saturday night at Richmond Raceway. He went from being caught up in a wreck on Lap 199 to winning the regular-season championship on Lap 400.
He didn't draw up the weekend this way, but he is not going to complain about the results or the 15 bonus playoff points.
"Feels great. I think, like I said in my interview, it's really the best 12th-place finish I've ever had," Byron said in response to a question from AltDriver.
"We came in here and really just did a solid job. We qualified solid. We always want more, but this is definitely our toughest racetrack. We just kind of came in here, had a solid plan and executed it."
Bring him the crown.@WilliamByron is the 2025 Regular Season Champion! pic.twitter.com/T7TAQoNR0r
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 17, 2025
Byron initially avoided a pileup started when Kyle Busch turned Chase Briscoe in the middle of the pack on Lap 199. He dove to the outside in search of a clear track while other cars slammed into each other.
For a moment, it appeared that Byron had squirted clear. However, Busch then turned Elliott directly into Byron's path. The two Hendrick cars collided. Byron continued in the race after sustaining less damage. Elliott hit the outside wall head-on and could not continue.
"Yeah, I was kind of losing my mind there for a minute," Byron said. "Just felt like there was so much going on.
"Just such a balance of trying to manage tires all night. It just got crazy on those couple restarts. That one restart was kind of the tipping point."
This incident put Byron in control in the battle for the regular-season championship, but he still had to finish the race 62 points ahead of his teammate. He achieved this by scoring two points in stage 2 and then crossing the finish line in 12th place.
Byron did not have a smooth and easy path to the regular-season championship even before the crash at Richmond. He finished 27th or worse in two races and then failed to finish three other races in a separate four-week stretch. A crash at Dover, in particular, knocked him out of the top spot in the Cup Series standings.
Yet, Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team did not pack it in and just accept second place. They kept racing and took back the top spot in the standings by winning at Iowa Speedway.
They continued to hold the lead at Watkins Glen International and Richmond Raceway. Meanwhile, Byron's top competition, Chase Elliott, lost crucial points in these two races.
"I think we knew within our team that we were different this year, different towards the end of last year, just really kind of buckled down and started to make some really good moves, good decisions," Byron added. "I started driving the car pretty well.
"Yeah, I think it all has kind of come together. So we had confidence, even when we lost the lead or whatever. Just kind of some random stuff, right? I spun out in qualifying. Cost us at Pocono. Chicago was a mess. Through all that stuff, we were fast."
The speed gave the No. 24 team a solid foundation, and they capitalized when it mattered most. Now, they have an extra 15 playoff points heading their way, courtesy of the regular-season championship.
Byron will have at minimum 32 playoff points when he enters the first round of the playoffs.
So how does he approach the final week of the regular season? Does he just cruise around at Daytona to avoid chaos, or does he set out to capture his second win at the superspeedway so that he can continue this run?
"I only feel like I know one way, and that's just to go as fast as I can," Byron said. "Going to try to really be up front, do all the things it takes to win the race, just knowing that that's -- the potential is there to be in a crash or whatever.
"Yeah, you can't really, like, drive around in bubble wrap. You just kind of got to go out there and do your job, try to get a good finish. Usually you crash more when you're conservative."