WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Rudy Fugle, crew chief for William Byron, said the No. 24 team’s goal was a top five Sunday at Watkins Glen International to keep control of their own destiny in the Regular Season Championship hunt.
Check.
Byron and company achieved that on a muggy, clear-sky afternoon in the Finger Lakes region, benefitting from a caution-free final stage to finish fourth at the 2.45-mile road course.
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But more importantly, Byron opened up a 42-point lead for the NASCAR Cup Series’ regular-season crown over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, who finished 26th in that team’s first result outside the top 20 this season. A successful 45-point outing for the No. 24 group helped Byron stretch the gap even further over Hendrick’s Kyle Larson, who entered Sunday third in points but was slowed by brake issues early on.
“We had really good pace in practice yesterday and couldn’t really back it up as good as we wanted to,” Fugle told NASCAR.com. “Once we realized we didn’t have the pace to run in that top-two or -three pace, we kind of punted to the strategy that we went to, which really helped us get some stage points. William did a great job of managing the car at the end and then still finished fourth, so great points day.”
That overnight pivot resulted in a two-stop strategy, with a decision to pit before the end of Stage 1 at Lap 16 before stretching an estimated 36-lap fuel window all the way to Lap 55. Conserving fuel certainly isn’t a new strategy for the No. 24 team, as they picked up the win the previous weekend at Iowa on fumes after a pair of failed fuel gambles earlier at Michigan and Indianapolis.
But with the final 45 laps staying green and temperatures reaching nearly 90 degrees in Upstate New York, it tested every ounce of the 27-year-old’s will with first-time championship aspirations at the forefront.
“I’m a little tired. The cars were tough to drive there,” Byron said Sunday on pit road, cracking a smile in relief. “That was a really long final run. Just trying to get all I could out of the car and felt like we did a really good job strategizing for what our car needed.
“Ultimately, our strategy was because of qualifying and the way the first stage went, so we didn’t have the best track position to really race for the win. The best bet for us was to do the two-stop when that [Lap 30] caution came out, because we had just fresh enough tires, I feel like, and we got the front row on the restart and really was able to maintain.”
Should Byron hang on over the next two weeks to win the Regular Season Championship, that call could be the turning point of the battle among teammates. Byron finished second in Stage 2, earning nine stage points — the most among the top three Hendrick contenders.
Restarting second in the final stage, Byron was among the first drivers called down pit road as the laps ticked off, stopping a lap before Ryan Blaney — who led at the time and won Stage 2. Byron finished second among the drivers electing the two-stop strategy; Christopher Bell, who came home runner-up, was the other.
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A new road-course tire introduced by Goodyear in 2024 at The Glen proved difficult for the No. 24 team the last time out, when Byron finished outside the top 30 a year removed from a win. But this time, Fugle and company nailed it.
“We’ve always been fast here. Our expectation is to run top five when we come here,” Fugle explained. “… We just have to keep learning and adapting, and we’ve done a better job. We just get a little closer.”
Two races now remain in the regular season, and with Richmond Raceway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), the Regular Season Championship is officially on the doorstep for the North Carolina native. As said Saturday at The Glen and echoed again post-race, Byron’s treating the final regular-season races as sort of trial run for the looming playoffs.
So far, so good.
“Just gotta keep digging,” Fugle said. “Gotta have a good race in Richmond, and then Daytona, anything bad can happen or good can happen. So we just want stay as big of a gap [ahead of Elliott] through next week as we can, and if we can’t extend it, then do it next week.”
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