“That Was the Difference”: What Went Wrong for William Byron at Darlington As Dominant Run Ends in Excruciating Finish

If there ever was a case to be made to hand out a consolation award in the NASCAR Cup, Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway would have been it. William Byron dominated the entire weekend, starting from the pole position, won the first two stages of the race, and led the first 243 laps of the 297-lap event. But ultimately it was Denny Hamlin who took to victory lane.

“I felt like we were in position to have a perfect race and that would have been pretty damn impressive,” Byron told FrontStretch.com. By all rights, Byron could have won. He should have won.

Bottom line, given everything he did Sunday afternoon, it was Byron’s race to win. Unfortunately, it ultimately wound up being his race to lose.

In the final stage, the Hendrick Motorsports driver fell back — still in the top 10, but fell back nonetheless — on a green flag pit stop. And even though he restarted on the second row following a late crash between Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson that sent the event into overtime, Byron just couldn’t catch race winner Denny Hamlin.

What would make the outcome even more disappointing for Byron is that despite his domination all afternoon, Hamlin would lead a grand total of just 10 laps in the entire race and ultimately took the checkered flag.

Byron finished runner-up, .597 of a second behind Hamlin, who earned his second consecutive win in as many races this season. For the HMS driver, it could have been his second win of the year, but it wasn’t.

Even so, Byron still wound up with his fourth top-five finish in the season’s first eight races, including a win in the season-opening Daytona 500, second-place finishes at Austin and now at Darlington, and fourth at Las Vegas.

“This was a dominant race start to finish,” Byron said. “I just wish we could have been closer there at the end, but it just fuels the fire for the rest of the weeks coming up.”

Or as Byron told FOX Sports, “Yeah, it sucks, I’m sure it’ll sting a lot tonight, but there’s still a lot of positives, it just stings in the moment, for sure.”