Despite six regular season wins, William Byron believes playoff drivers to be "on equal footing" heading into Homestead-Miami

Prior to the beginning of the Round of 8 Cup Series playoffs, William Byron was regarded as the title favorite sitting atop the points standings. However, after the trip to Las Vegas last weekend, he refutes the notion of being the title favorite.

Last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Byron's teammate Kyle Larson took the dub to secure his berth in the championship race. Although the #24 Chevy driver is currently second in the standings, he has a slender margin of nine points to the cut-off line.

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Martin Truex Jr and Denny Hamlin are third and fourth in the standings just two points above the cut-off line. Given the close points situation amongst the playoff drivers, William Byron reckons all playoff drivers are on equal footing.

“I do think in terms of being a favorite, I think all that stuff goes out the window now when you look at the points and how close we all are,” he was quoted by NBC as saying.

“Everyone’s pretty much on equal footing right now, so it’s not really about who is the favorite … it’s about who can perform in the next two races and who has the best cars at those two tracks,” he added.

With a second-place finish at Las Vegas, Christopher Bell is on the bubble just two points behind his JGR teammates. Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney are each 16 and 17 points adrift of the cut-off margin respectively. Chris Buescher is last in the playoff standings, just 23 points adrift of the cutline.

NASCAR heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway over the course of the next two weeks. Each bubble driver has a genuine shot at making the season finale as the title contender.

William Byron has won six races this season, collecting plenty of playoff points but the buffer seems to have disappeared. Hence, Byron is hoping to steal a victory in the next rounds to continue his playoff run.

---

William Byron hoping for a better run at Homestead this season

The #24 Hendrick Motorsports driver will be returning to a track where he won the pole position last year but converted it into a 12th-place finish on Sunday. William Byron's outing at the Homestead race was affected by a slow pitstop.

Byron couldn't advance into the final round last year and is hoping for a better result this year as he returns to the 1.5-mile oval in Miami.

“Homestead, last year, we didn’t keep up with the racetrack, and we were a little bit behind there and just had a bad final run of the race,” said Byron.

“It’s really just trying to make sure that I communicate the best that I can to give my crew chief and my team the best information so we have a good car at the end of the race.”

William Byron won a regular season race at Homestead back in 2021 and will be hoping to repeat the same this weekend.