William Byron has his second Cup Series win.
Byron drove away from the field over the final 40 laps of Sunday’s NASCAR race at Homestead to put himself in a position to make the playoffs for a third consecutive season.
Byron was so fast over the final stage of the race that no one could mount a challenge. The fastest car over the final laps belonged to Tyler Reddick, but he had to charge from the back half of the top 10 to finish a distant second to Byron.
Byron stole the win in the second stage of the race on a one-lap shootout and then had by far the best car over the final stage of the race. His lead was so dominant that drivers outside the top 10, like Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, pitted for fresh tires with about 30 laps to go in the hopes of making up track position with fresh rubber on the extremely abrasive track.
Reddick was the driver to watch as Byron was on cruise control at the end. He ran down Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. in the final 10 laps and passed them both before the checkered flag.
Byron’s first win of his career came at Daytona in August. He then finished 14th in the points standings after he was 11th in 2019.
A win typically guarantees a driver a spot in the playoffs. But after three races in 2021, it’s hard to make that proclamation at the moment. The winners so far have been Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell and Byron. If you assume that drivers like Kevin Harvick, Truex, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Keselowski, Logano and Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney win races during the regular season, there isn’t much room for other surprise winners to lock their way into the playoffs.
If there are 17 or more winners in the first 26 races — a possible but still improbable outcome given that no season with a win-and-in NASCAR playoff has had more winners than playoff spots — the top 16 drivers in the points standings would make the playoffs.
Team Penske drivers fade
Logano and Keselowski had some of the fastest cars at the start of Sunday’s race. That speed disappeared as the sun went down and nighttime enveloped the track.
Keselowski finished 16th after the late pit stop gamble and Logano ended up 25th.
Blaney, meanwhile, found himself in 29th after he got cut off by Aric Almirola. Blaney was on the outside of Almirola in Turns 3 and 4 in the final stage as Almirola came up the track like Balney wasn’t between him and the wall. The collision damaged both drivers’ cars enough to cause a caution and render them uncompetitive for the rest of the race.
Chris Buescher leads 57 laps
The surprise winner theme looked like it could carry on during the first and second stages of Sunday’s race as Chris Buescher had some great speed.
Buescher led 57 laps and won the first stage of the race ahead of Keselowski and Truex. He finished sixth in stage 2 but fell off in the third stage and ultimately finished 19th.
The 57 laps Buescher led are the most he’s ever led in a single Cup Series race. And the most he’s ever led in a single Cup Series season. Buescher’s previous season-high in laps led was 33 a year ago. In 188 previous Cup Series starts, he had led a total of 188 laps.
Is this parity a blip? Or a sign of things to come?
It’s hard not to wonder if 2021 will be a season without a dominant driver after the first three races of the season. But will that wonder become reality? It’s probably too soon to tell.
Why? The first three races of the season have been held on distinctly different types of tracks. Sequences like that typically lead to short bursts of parity in a Cup Series season.
It’s also hard to draw a significant conclusion from a three-race sample anyway. That’s why NASCAR modified its playoff system ahead of the 2017 season to allow drivers to carry points earned over the course of the regular season throughout the playoffs. Those points helped minimize some of the randomness that appeared in previous playoff formats.
So let’s wait a bit before we make sweeping judgments about the 2021 season. We could be in for a season full of unpredictable winners. But there’s no need to draw conclusions about a 36-race campaign that isn’t even 10% complete.
Race results
1. William Byron
2. Tyler Reddick
3. Martin Truex Jr.
4. Kyle Larson
5. Kevin Harvick
6. Michael McDowell
7. Ryan Newman
8. Kurt Busch
9. Alex Bowman
10. Kyle Busch
11. Denny Hamlin
12. Austin Dillon
13. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
14. Chase Elliott
15. Daniel Suarez
16. Brad Keselowski
17. Ross Chastain
18. Chase Briscoe
19. Chris Buescher
20. Christopher Bell
21. Ryan Preece
22. Bubba Wallace
23. Cole Custer
24. Anthony Alfredo
25. Joey Logano
26. Justin Haley
27. Erik Jones
28. Matt DiBenedetto
29. Ryan Blaney
30. Aric Almirola
31. Garrett Smithley
32. Cody Ware
33. Josh Bilicki
34. BJ McLeod
35. Quin Houff
36. Corey LaJoie
37. James Davison
38. Timmy Hill
Points standings
1. Denny Hamlin, 139 points
2. Kevin Harvick, 119
3. Joey Logano, 108
4. Michael McDowell, 106
5. Chase Elliott, 105
6. Kurt Busch, 104
7. Christopher Bell, 99
8. Kyle Larson, 97
9. Martin Truex Jr., 96
10. Brad Keselowski, 95
11. Austin Dillon, 90
12. Ryan Preece, 90
13. William Byron, 76
14. Cole Custer, 68
15. Chris Buescher, 67
16. Bubba Wallace, 67
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