RIDGEWAY, Va. — In a situation where he had to win in order to earn the right to race for his first NASCAR Cup Series championship, William Byron outmuscled Ryan Blaney in the final laps at Martinsville to cap off a dominant day and win the Xfinity 500. Byron, who earned his third win of the season, third at Martinsville and the 16th of his Cup career, overcame a 36 point deficit to the Championship 4 cut line to join Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson in next week’s championship race at Phoenix.
After two previous potential winning efforts in the Round of 8 went awry late in those races — colliding with a lapped car coming to pit road at Las Vegas and spinning out of the pack coming to the finish line at Talladega — Byron made a statement by winning the pole at Martinsville, then leading 304 of 500 laps. But in order to make the Championship 4, Byron had to run down Ryan Blaney in a run to the finish that amounted to a head-to-head fight between drivers who had to win in order to make it to Phoenix.
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Byron made his move with 43 laps to go, moving Blaney off of the bottom groove in turn 1 to take the lead. But when a spin by Carson Hocevar brought out the caution with less than 20 laps to go, Byron and his crew had to execute both on their final pit stop and the final restart. They did so, earning the right to try and become a championship team.
“Things have a way of working out. God really tests your resilience a lot of times, and we’ve been tested,” Byron told NBC Sports. “Unbelievable. I’m out of breath … I am just so thankful, excited to see my family, and just celebrate this one. We obviously go to Phoenix and just try to go kick ass there.
“You just work so hard, all these guys work so hard, and you put everything into Sundays. And sometimes, you don’t get anything in return, and that’s been the last couple weeks and honestly throughout the year we’ve had some close calls. Sometimes life is that way. But you’ve just got to keep being resilient, and we were, and it just feels damn good.”
Blaney finished second, but it would be all for naught as he, Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell and defending Cup champion Joey Logano were eliminated from championship contention at the end of the Round of 8. Elliott finished third with Ross Chastain fourth, Kyle Larson fifth, Ryan Preece sixth, and then Bell, Logano, Todd Gilliland and Josh Berry rounding out the top 10.
After the two were separated by just a single point entering Martinsville, Larson was able to successfully outpoint Bell, becoming the final driver to make the Championship 4 by seven points. But with Byron’s win bumping the cut line down, it meant Bell had his heart ripped out for the second year in a row, having entered Martinsville with a 37-point advantage on the cut line only to be eliminated from title contention.
“We had good enough track position all day that we were kind of out of the mess, I guess,” Larson told NBC Sports. “… Happy for [William], happy for our team, happy for Hendrick Motorsports. This went as good as it could’ve for us, to score more points than Christopher and then have William or Chase win, too. Glad we can give Mr. H an opportunity next week, and hopefully one of us can win it.”
“Just seemed like we were lacking a little bit of long run pace,” Bell told NBC Sports. “I felt whenever we got the balance close at times I could take off on tires and do okay and make some passes, maintain my position. Then the consistent theme of the day was just falling backwards as the tires got old.
“We just weren’t strong enough at Martinsville this weekend. We practiced in the teens, we qualified in the teens, and kind of raced back there most of the day. I feel content with the results. I think the four going there are legitimate contenders. Whoever the champion is, it’s going to be well-deserved. The 20 team wasn’t good enough.”
The Championship 4 will pit the two Hendrick cars of Byron and Larson against two Joe Gibbs Racing cars driven by Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe, both of whom failed to finish on Sunday after suffering engine failures. Of that group, only Larson has previously won the Cup championship, having won the crown in 2021.
With three rounds of playoff racing now in the books, next week’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway comes down to a pure match race between the four drivers who have made the final round. Whoever among the Championship 4 drivers has the best finish in the Championship Race will become the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion.
Xfinity 500 results
- #24 – William Byron
- #12 – Ryan Blaney
- #9 – Chase Elliott
- #1 – Ross Chastain
- #5 – Kyle Larson
- #60 – Ryan Preece
- #20 – Christopher Bell
- #22 – Joey Logano
- #34 – Todd Gilliland
- #21 – Josh Berry
- #45 – Tyler Reddick
- #54 – Ty Gibbs
- #8 – Kyle Busch
- #88 – Shane van Gisbergen (R)
- #2 – Austin Cindric
- #3 – Austin Dillon
- #41 – Cole Custer
- #23 – Bubba Wallace
- #7 – Justin Haley
- #6 – Brad Keselowski
- #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
- #99 – Daniel Suarez
- #48 – Alex Bowman
- #71 – Michael McDowell
- #38 – Zane Smith
- #10 – Ty Dillon
- #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- #16 – A.J. Allmendinger
- #17 – Chris Buescher
- #4 – Noah Gragson
- #77 – Carson Hocevar
- #51 – Cody Ware
- #66 – Casey Mears
- #43 – Erik Jones
- #11 – Denny Hamlin
- #35 – Riley Herbst (R)
- #19 – Chase Briscoe
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