William Byron says HMS has “no breathing room” despite his dominant New Hampshire showing

William Byron recorded one of his strongest performances throughout the 2025 playoffs at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, finishing third behind race-winner Ryan Blaney and runner-up Josh Berry. Byron is in a comfortable position now, given that he owns a 47-point cushion on the cutoff line.

One might think that the points advantage would give Byron some room to breathe. But that’s not the case. Byron feels like there is no breathing room as playoff drivers like himself will now need to execute every single week.

“It's no breathing room because you've got to go out and execute every week. You've got to keep your foot on the gas in this deal,” William Byron explained in a statement. “Hopefully we can go to Kansas and be up front contending for a win. Then you go to the ROVAL, and you can kind of have that one where you can kind of reset.” “You've just got to take it one week at a time. Definitely wasn't expecting to be this strong here. Hopefully we can go to Kansas and be really good,” he added.

William Byron and his teammate Chase Elliott were the only two drivers from the HMS camp who finished the race inside the top five. Kyle Larson, their other teammate, finished seventh, while Alex Bowman, who is no longer a playoff driver, ended up 15th.

Byron’s top-three run came as a sigh of relief for the entire team following a series of disappointing performances in the opening round of the playoffs.

“It was a good day overall for this No. 24 Raptor Chevrolet team,” Byron said in another statement. “I felt like a lot of things that we’ve just kind of been building on for the short-tracks were working for us.”

All eyes are on Kansas Speedway, which will host next week’s race. Named Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet, the 267-lap event will be televised on USA (September 28, 3 p.m. ET) with exclusive radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

William Byron holds his recent underperformance responsible for resetting “goals and expectations”

Coming off a stellar regular season, William Byron thought he could also carry that momentum into the playoffs. But things didn’t go as planned. Byron finished 21st, 11th, and 12th at Darlington, World Wide Technology Raceway, and Bristol, respectively.

That’s also why Byron and his No. 24 team had to revisit their goals and expectations from the second round. Detailing the same, the driver said:

“The thought for us was, ‘OK, we have a lot of bonus points, maybe we can go out there and get some more,’ and try to capitalize on a race win or something like that. We weren’t close to that in the first round, so we had to kind of reset our goals and expectations.” “We did kind of survive and advance; we did that flawlessly. We were out of the drama, the wrecks and things that happened,” he added.

Well, it seems William Byron’s strategy paid off in the end. All he needs to do now is stay out of on-track incidents and pick up state points to maintain his stronghold over the cutoff line. He can also win a race and qualify directly for the Round of 8.

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Edited by Samya Majumdar