William Byron keeping "realistic" hopes of winning NASCAR regular season championship title

William Byron recently addressed his chances of taking Tyler Reddick's place in the regular season championship standings. The 23XI Racing driver went to the top of the table last Sunday after his win at Michigan. Byron, who is currently 5th on the table, is below his Hendrick teammates, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott.

Ahead of this Sunday's race at Daytona International Speedway, where William Byron won the Daytona 500 in February this year. In an interaction with the media before the race on August 25, he was asked whether he had a strategy to leapfrog Reddick. To which he said (via "Cup Scene" on YouTube):

“I don’t think we’re really, I think, technically I guess we are in the race for the regular season, but I think we’re really eyeing fourth or fifth in points. I think we moved up a spot because of the penalty, and I think we just need to keep doing a good job," Byron said [5:40].

The #24 driver mentioned that he didn't have a great race at Richmond but it was still "kind of status quo" for him. William Byron further spoke about losing some points at the Brickyard 400 after he had a DNF despite having a car capable of finishing inside the top 5.

"Just trying to climb out of that hole. I think going into that race we were only 40 back, then we were 90 back. Just trying to climb out of that hole and see if we can chip away at it. Like, I said, if we can get a few stage wins and try to finish fourth or fifth, that’s going to be realistic," he added.

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William Byron presses on the importance of having Darlington as the regular season finale this year

For this season's schedule, NASCAR made many changes, one of which was pulling the Coke Zero Sugar 400 from the last stop in the regular season schedule. Instead of it, NASCAR put Darlington Raceway, which is nicknamed 'Too Tough to Tame, as the regular season finale.

This was an aspect of the upcoming race on Saturday that William Byron was asked about. The Hendrick Motorsports driver was asked to share his thoughts on the regular season finale being at a racetrack where finishes aren't as full of uncertainty as they are on a track like Daytona.

Byron was further asked whether he'd prefer having Daytona back as next year's regular-season finale, to which he said,

“I don’t know. I’m indifferent. I feel like I care more what the playoffs tracks are. I feel like when we were in that position in 2020, I mean, I don’t want to be in that position again. It about gave me a heart attack with the stress of it. I feel like leading into that race going into a superspeedway, we were three points out then ended up winning the race. The points kinda took care of themselves. I don’t envy that position. I don’t know. It’s probably more entertaining to be for it to be the last race, for sure, but as a competitor I think it’s nice to have Darlington because it’s a crown jewel," William Byron explained. [12:00]

The Daytona 500 winner claimed that having the regular season finale at Darlington would make it an 'important' race, but at the same time, he remarked that the penultimate race of the regular season being at the racetrack would serve as a "playoff tune-up" for everyone.