William Byron continues his historic run with a fourth-place finish in Darlington

William Byron was barely out of elementary school the last time a Hendrick Motorsports driver had 10 consecutive top-10 finishes.

With a 10th straight top 10 Sunday at Darlington Raceway in 2021, Byron equals the mark set by Jeff Gordon in 2007. By finishing fourth in the Goodyear 400, Byron not only maintained his winning streak but also solidified his place in title contention.

“I think it just shows the strength of the car, our team, our communication, all those things,” Byron said. “If you’re running 15th all day and you finish in the top five, it might feel nice, but it doesn’t really show much points-wise.”

The No. 24 team, on the other hand, has been gaining stage points in addition to the great finishes. Byron started and finished in the top five of the 293-lap race.

“I feel like for us to run where we finish all day is impressive and that’s what the good teams do,” he said. “We’re in that mix. We’re in that fourth-to-sixth range right now, so we just have to break that seal to get into the top two or three, which I think it’s pretty obvious which cars those are. We’re getting close.”

Byron did not win on Sunday, but he did place in the top five for the third time in the past five races, after only one in the first seven races of the season.

Despite this, Darlington and its slick conditions caused some difficulties for Byron.

“I thought we were pretty solid all day. We fell back to eighth or ninth early in the race and we were just too loose,” he said. “We didn’t really have the car fully connected yet, but we just got it better and better.

“The long runs were still our weakness. We were a fourth-place car. But to finish fourth is good for us. Tenth top-10 in a row is awesome. I think our team is just super consistent this year. That’s a credit to Rudy [Fugle, crew chief] and the guys preparing awesome cars and executing well.

The next step? To beat the very guys who finished ahead of him Sunday. Especially, the top two of Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr.

“We just have to find that little bit to kind of get with the Nos. 5 [Larson) and the 19 [Truex]. We’re there at times, but we can’t really break that seal, which is hard. We just have to continue to build the notebook. It’s Rudy and I’s first time going to these tracks, so I feel like there’s a lot of room to go still. But we’re doing great.”

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