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William Byron In Prime Spot As Battle For NASCAR Regular Season Title Rages On

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
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William Byron

With his win on Sunday at Iowa Speedway, William Byron returned to a familiar position — atop the NASCAR Cup Series standings.

And, as a result of regaining the points lead, Byron is once again in the catbird seat to capture the all-important regular season championship. But with three races still left in the regular season, the Hendrick Motorsports driver can’t breath easily.

Three others, including two of Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates, are nipping at his heels.

How Big Of A Leap Did William Byron Make At Iowa?

Entering the race at Iowa, William Byron trailed teammate Chase Elliott by four points for the top spot in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.

But Byron and Elliott swapped places by day’s end, with Byron leaving the Hawkeye State 18 points to the good of NASCAR’s perennial Most Popular Driver.

Elliott, meanwhile, sits 27 points ahead of third-place teammate Kyle Larson, who likewise struggled at Iowa. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, who arrived at Iowa fourth in points but just 20 points out of first, maintained his position, as did Larson. However, just like Larson, Hamlin saw his deficit to first-place balloon considerably.

Hamlin is now 51 points in arrears of regular season championship leader Byron, who’s held the top spot for most of 2025. While Hamlin still has time to catch Byron and leapfrog all three Hendrick drivers ahead of him, he now trails Byron by nearly a full race. That’s because 60 is the maximum number of race points a driver can earn in any of the three remaining regular season events.

Has Regular Season Title Fight Put Hendrick Teammates In An Awkward Position?

Given that Hendrick Motorsports teammates are sitting 1-2-3 in the Cup Series standings, the odds are overwhelming that the regular season champ will be a Hendrick driver.

Naturally, this begs a very important question, though. Are William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson likely to discuss their hard-fought battle for the regular season title and the super-important 15 bonus playoff points that come with it?

“No, I don’t think we discuss it,” Byron said after his Iowa victory. “It’s just three extremely strong teams. Really, Alex (Bowman, another Hendrick driver) is running great as well. It’s just strength on strength. We just continue to push each other. I feel like we always race one another really fair but hard. Like today, we were all racing right around each other, and it was hard racing.

“I just think we continue to push each other. And I think that’s helping everybody. It’s just preparing us for later down the stretch in the season.”

Although the four current Hendrick drivers haven’t always gotten along with each other — in fact, past tensions between Elliott and Larson have been well-documented — Byron has nothing but praise for the other Hendrick guys. At least for right now.

After all, it was just three years ago that Elliott and Larson clashed memorably on the road course at Watkins Glen International. Which just so happens to be the site of this weekend’s race.

“I respect my teammates a ton,” Byron said. “I feel like we learn a lot from one another. We all have kind of our unique driving styles. But we have all kind of morphed into being able to drive this (Next Generation) car really well. It’s just cool to see us all compete.”

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.
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