This is one of four feature stories on the finalists — Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, William Byron and Chase Briscoe — competing for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship on Sunday at Phoenix.
William Byron celebrated one of the biggest wins of his career by eating cookies at home.
He couldn’t do much else Sunday night. His crew was already working on the car in preparing for the championship, a berth Byron earned with the victory earlier in the day at Martinsville Speedway.
William Byron celebrates with his parents after winning at Martinsville on Sunday.
Any celebrating would have to wait, and hopefully it would be an even bigger celebration this Sunday if Byron wins his first career Cup title.
“Sunday night, I got a chance to just ride home with my dad in the car and share old racing stories,” Byron said. “And then my sister has been in town. We made some cookies on Sunday night and just chilled.
“It was probably the most chill win celebration I’ve had so far in my Cup career. But it’s pretty nice, because I’m ready and excited for Phoenix. I moved on pretty quickly.”
The entire Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 team had to move on with the team’s car transporter leaving Tuesday for the championship race Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.
“I didn’t want to be a negative influence for sure,” Byron said with a laugh in being away from his crew Sunday night. “Everyone’s been working their tails off. … I say I moved on fast, but I definitely reflected on Martinsville, just like any race.
“But then once I was able to kind of turn the page, I feel like I’ve been able to study for Phoenix and get going on that.”
William Byron was all smiles after capturing a second straight Daytona 500 victory.
While he has finished third in the standings the last two years as a championship finalist, Byron knows how to win on the biggest stage. He has captured back-to-back Daytona 500s. This past Sunday, he had to win at Martinsville in the semifinal round elimination race just to have a shot at the championship.
The 27-year-old driver also knows about highs and lows, often all in the same year. He will try to ride the wave of emotion and confidence into Phoenix, where he will battle Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe for the title.
Just two years ago, Ryan Blaney parlayed a Martinsville win into a championship, so Byron knows it is possible.
“The nice thing about the last couple weeks is just the goal and objectives have been super clear for us [needing to win],” Byron said. “It’s great. I love the momentum.
“The season, good or bad, is going to come to a close really soon, and we have one more week to give it everything we’ve got, and that’s how we felt going into Martinsville as well.”
Byron didn’t just win the 2025 Daytona 500, he also won the Cup regular-season title. He has led more laps — 1,278 — than any other driver. But Byron doesn’t have the most top-fives (he has 11, the same as at this time last year), and had pockets this season where he seemed to have more a top-10 day than a top-five.
But Byron feels the team has managed the season after winning the Daytona 500 better this year than last year.
“What I would compare it to and what I had to learn last year is that there’s a high from it, and then there’s obviously, any time you have all that energy and adrenaline, you’re going to come down from that eventually,” Byron said.
“This year has been more business as usual. We really told ourselves we wanted to compete for wins in the big races this year, and we’ve done that in each one of them, each of the crown jewels. We’ve had an opportunity. So I feel like we just kind of trained ourselves for that pressure.”
William Byron hopes this is the year he can break through at Phoenix for his first career Cup title.
Byron has shown speed in recent weeks, the result of better communication with crew chief Rudy Fugle and them fitting the pieces together for a better balance in the car.
“I feel like I’ve learned how to ride that better than years’ past, and, if anything, it just has felt like a year that we hadn’t reached our potential — and I was pretty open about that,” Byron said.
“It just is starting to come together, and it’s exciting to see, and you just roll with that momentum.”
No driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2013 has won the Daytona 500 and gone on to win the championship. Maybe not so coincidentally, the new elimination-style, one-race championship format was introduced in 2014.
“[Winning the 500] let us race pretty free in the beginning of the year and have a lot of success, but in reality, I don’t think they’re super connected for where we’re at in the year and whatnot,” Fugle said.
“You could probably link the two together as being a lot of people aren’t lucky to win both in the same year.”
Team owner Rick Hendrick said it is a process to build on a Daytona 500 win.
“Daytona is special, but I think right after you win Daytona, you realize that, ‘Hey, we got to be up in the points, we got to win races, we got to advance,’” Hendrick said. “There’s a tremendous amount of pressure all year long.
“William had a fast start. I think you can’t take away the Daytona 500 … because a lot of drivers go through their careers and never win that race. That’s one that everybody wants. But I don’t think after two, three races, you can’t live on that. You got to move on.”
Byron believes he has.
“I just feel like all the pieces are starting to come together, where we feel like we’re operating at our best,” Byron said. “That part’s exciting. … We’ve just got to keep pushing.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
