Denny Hamlin was within arm’s reach of his first NASCAR Cup Championship, with two decades of chasing his dream nearly materializing. But fate had other plans, and William Byron, unfortunately, had a role to play in it.
Advertisement
Just as Hamlin was about to take the white flag, a yellow flag waved instead, triggered by a tire failure, courtesy of Byron, who hit the wall hard in Turns 3 and 4. That single caution erased Hamlin’s year-long fight once again.
The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran dove to pit road for four fresh tires, while some gambled, taking only two, and others stayed out entirely. The decision buried Hamlin deep in traffic, restarting tenth for the overtime dash. Ahead of him, Kyle Larson, who had opted for two right-sides, capitalized on the chaos, holding track position and crossing the line third to secure his second Cup championship.
Larson himself could not believe that he won his second championship this way. For Hamlin meanwhile, it was the heartbreak of the cruelest kind. He even said, “This sport can drive you crazy…Sometimes speed, talent, all that stuff…just does not matter…” “Right now, I don’t want to race a car ever again. My fun meter is pegged.”
Hamlin was visibly crushed and even Byron carried the weight of the moment.
The 24-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver, whose misfortune had triggered the race-altering caution, walked into the media center, placed a hand on Hamlin’s shoulder, and offered a quiet apology. “Hey. Sorry, bud,” he told the JGR driver before Hamlin’s post-race press conference began.
Byron later explained the gesture with genuine remorse. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right. Yeah, I mean, I think just kind of seeing him, he had beat us, and we’re running second, four laps to go, you go into the wall and cause a caution. It sucks, right? I don’t want to be that guy, even if I’m in the Championship 4. Doesn’t really matter. Don’t want to change the outcome. So it sucks.”
William Byron on why he apologized to Denny Hamlin: “It just doesn’t seem right, you know? He had beat us and we’re running second and it’s four laps to go and you go into the wall and cause a caution. I don’t want to be that guy. That sucks.” https://t.co/bm6eerxSdd
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) November 3, 2025
Breaking down the incident, Byron admitted he had felt something off just before disaster struck. With three laps to go, he was trying to figure out left rear, right rear. About the time he hit the brakes into three, it lay down on the right side of the car and went straight. While he was hoping it would be a left rear so he could kind of get back, he eventually could not make up for it.
It was the latest in a string of tire failures that turned the championship finale into a war of attrition. Teams had been running well below Goodyear’s recommended air pressures, gambling on grip and paying the price. By race’s end, every single title contender had suffered a cut tire at one point or another.
For Hamlin, this was another bitter pill to swallow. The win that seemed written in the stars slipped through his fingers in a moment no strategy could have predicted. That’s exactly why NASCAR and fans are looking forward to the new format, one that might give steady hands like Hamlin a fair shake, instead of leaving it all to one roll of the dice.
