Six races into the NASCAR season, William Byron holds an early edge in the Cup Series standings. The Hendrick Motorsports driver has been in that No. 1 perch the last four weeks … and has another Daytona 500 trophy already in his season’s souvenir case.
Multiple factors have put the No. 24 Chevrolet team and its 27-year-old star in such a prime early position, but it’s difficult to overlook just how stellar Byron has been so far in several crucial performance metrics.
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Byron ranks first in three of four key performance categories this season, according to NASCAR Insights data. The Racing Insights-powered analysis shows Byron leading the Cup Series in speed rating, defense rating and restart performance; the only category he isn’t heading is passer rating, where he’s a respectable eighth in the field.
Those top-rated metrics in the speed rating category stem from his overall pace relative to the rest of the field, with NASCAR Insights calculating short- and long-run speed and his efforts in both clean and dirty air. Byron’s defense rating measures his ability to hold position when under pressure, and his restart rating weighs his positions gained or lost and consistency after the green flag flies. The only other driver with top-10 ratings in all four categories is Tyler Reddick — third in both speed and passer rating, sixth in defense rating and 10th on restarts.
The Daytona win is one of four top-six finishes this year for Byron, who carries a healthy 36-point lead over Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson in the standings into Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Martinsville Speedway. Two of his 14 career Cup Series wins have come at the Virginia short track, and he is the 400-lap race’s defending winner. He is also the only driver to lead at least one lap in all six Cup Series events this season.
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Byron’s only blips on his results this year include a 27th-place run last month at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where late-race contact at the front foiled his bid for back-to-back wins. He was also in contention for a solid finish last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, when a pit-road speeding penalty late in the race knocked Byron from the top 10; he still wound up 12th.
Byron ended up third in last year’s championship race, behind Team Penske’s Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney in the Phoenix Raceway finale. But momentum was squarely on his side during the season’s home stretch; he was among the top six finishers in each of the final seven races of 2024.
