"We had little bit of handling issues": William Byron on battling early signs of trouble at Atlanta to keep himself in the safe zone

William Byron has reflected on his playoff opener race hosted by Atlanta Motor Speedway. The Hendrick Motorsports driver braved the early signs of trouble to keep his #24 Chevy in contention for the Round of 12.

HMS's overall day at the 1.54-mile oval wrapped on a satisfactory note. Christopher Bell came in fourth and was the highest finisher among his teammates. Alex Bowman stood fifth while Byron settled in ninth. Kyle Larson's day, however, was marred by his mistake.

Wiliam Byron kicked off his run from the ninth but struggled with handling. Still, he finished eighth in Stage 1 and rose to fifth in the second stage. He survived the late race chaos that collected multiple drivers but lost a few track positions in the due process.

With just two laps until the checkered flag dropped, the traffic ahead pushed the HMS driver down to 14th. Nonetheless, the #24 driver recouped with the pack to mark his 14th top 10 of the season. After a chaotic weekend in Atlanta, Byron detailed his run stagewise. He said:

"We had little bit of handling issues in the first stage but we overcame that, eighth place stage points. Second stage was pretty good, was up towards the front. And the third stage, we were up in the front the whole time just trying to save fuel. Feel like we did a good job for the most part. The second to last restart, I wasn't quite sure who pushed when they were three-wide in front of me and I got trapped three-wide bottom and lost some spots. But happy to come back and finish ninth," Byron said.

Byron is placed fifth in the playoff standings.

“It’s going to be crazy”: William Byron expresses his thoughts about racing in the 2024 playoffs

The 2024 playoffs have two superspeedways and two road courses in the first two rounds. This includes Atlanta Motor Speedway, Watkins Glen International, Talladega Superspeedway, and Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.

The AMS went through a reconfiguration job between the 2021 and 2022 seasons. After the latest work on the asphalt, the banking has increased from 24 to 28 degrees while the width has been reduced from 55 to 40 feet. Thus, the quad-oval produces similar racing to that on superspeedways like Daytona and Talladega.

Having such tracks in the first two rounds of Cup Series playoffs will present a highly challenging scenario for the drivers, and they would have to be versatile enough to tame the diverse tracks.

Before beginning his playoff opener race, Byron outlined the crazy aspect of this season's playoffs.

"Yeah, I mean it’s going to be crazy. You know, you’ve got two superspeedways and two road courses in the first two rounds, so it is crazy. It’s going to put an emphasis on being good at those places and being good at road courses, especially when there’s two of them now and not just the ROVAL anymore," he said.

William Byron is the highest-placed HMS driver in the playoffs, while Kyle Larson is the lowest.