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Byron not letting Cup Series championship race letdown define his season

William Byron will not define the success of his NASCAR Cup Series season by the absence of a championship.

“I think I’m mature enough now to understand that and the way this format is – the way it comes down to one race,” Byron said. “You want to put everything you can into it, and you go out there waking up feeling like you have a one-in-four chance to win the championship. But when it’s all said and done, you’re like, OK, we put everything we could put into it, especially this year, controlled the variables I felt I could control, and I thought I had a good race.

“I thought I was running well, getting the most out of my car, and was probably going to finish second there. So, I leave it at that.”

Byron ultimately finished fourth in the 2025 championship hunt. A blown tire in the season finale, with just four laps remaining, ended his afternoon. Until that point, Byron and company appeared to be the only title contenders able to hang with Denny Hamlin and were running second before the incident. Hamlin had been the class of the field.

It was the third straight Championship 4 appearance for Byron. A walk-off win at Martinsville Speedway earned Byron his spot after a rough Round of 8 in which he was involved in incidents in the waning laps of the first two races in the round.

“Once all that was said, I turned the page on the actual race,” Byron said. “But I will, hopefully over the next week or so or month, be able to reflect on the season. I think Martinsville is going to be a major highlight because we really took control of our destiny there, and that was cool. That weekend is going to stick with me personally to think about what that meant as a team.”

The stats tell the tale of Byron’s remarkable consistency through the season. David Jensen/Getty Images

It was a season in which Byron posted incredible consistency, which earned him the regular-season championship. He led the point standings for 21 of the first 26 races.

Byron led the series in multiple statistical categories, such as laps led, miles led, stage wins, stage points, and laps run inside the top 15. He tied for the overall best average start in the series.

It was not only a statistically sound season but one that Byron felt was his best as a driver.

“Winning the regular season championship, winning the (Daytona) 500, three races a year, is something to really be proud of,” he said. “So, yeah, I feel like it was our best year yet, honestly. But there was a lot of adversity and things that happened kind of all the way to the end. It seems like a lot changed for us in the results with about three laps to go this year. We’ve got to learn from that. A lot of it was out of our control but we’ve got to move past it.

“But overall, yeah, it was our best year with results. You see that with the regular season championship and different things.”