“Tried Too Hard and Messed Up”: William Byron Has More or Less Conceded NASCAR Regular Season Championship

Disaster struck at Michigan for Hendrick Motorsports as the team saw two drivers retiring early into Sunday’s race. First, it was Chase Elliott who wrecked out owing to a tire failure, then it was Wiliam Byron who seemed to have made an error in judgment. With Byron’s finish at Michigan, his hopes of the regular series championship dash may have come to an end.

Following his incident the driver spoke with members of the media, where he revealed what went wrong with him and his car, admitting it to be a driver error on his part and not anything related to his tires or anything technical.

William Byron admits driver error after wrecking out in Michigan

Speaking to the media after his incident, Byron mentioned, “Tried hard to get stage points there. Didn’t have the best restart on the bottom. Lost a few positions and was trying to make it back up. Car was fast all weekend but we were free till that point in the race. Just tried too hard and messed up. So yeah, Driver error.”

“Just tried too hard and messed up.”

William Byron on the incident and moving on from the regular season championship narrative pic.twitter.com/TsIWV0RFuQ

— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) August 6, 2023

Just 12 laps after his teammate Chase Elliott had retired from the race, Byron went into the outside wall. Although the crash did not seem too bad at first, it was when Byron took his car to the pits that the team decided to park the car considering the terminal damage on the car.

Bryon finished the race in 35th place and has already hampered his expectations to win the regular season. At the moment the HMS driver finds himself in the 3rd position in the standings. Martin Truex Jr. leads the points table with his teammate, Denny Hamlin, following close behind.

Byron’s Hendrick Teammate had a tire blowout

Unlike Byron, his teammate, Chase Elliott is in a tough position with regards to points and the playoff situation. Elliott was another HMS car that could not continue on with the race and DNF’d. Although for Elliott the problem had been his tires, after he suffered a flat and spun out of control.

The wreck for Elliott means that he won’t be gaining any points advantage with just three races remaining till the end of the regular season. But considering he still has three more races remaining, out of which two are road courses, there might still be hope for the 2020 Cup Series champion to sneak through.