William Byron set to keep building personal Hendrick Motorsports legacy

There was no universe in which William Byron was going to leave Hendrick Motorsports.

This sounds like hyperbole but the 27-year-old has made the final four two years in a row and has won the Daytona 500 the past two seasons. Hendrick Motorsports has a young marketable star that is everything they ever look for in a driver.

It seems that both sides felt that way when it came time to hammer out a four-year contract extension, which was announced on Friday.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely like amicable, I feel like, the whole time, and just kind of working through it,” Byron said on Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. :But, you know, I definitely wanted to be here, and really for me, just want to focus on winning races. That’s what it’s all about at Hendrick Motorsports, and that’s what I personally enjoy and want to be here to do.

“So, for me personally, I try to just kind of keep my head down this year and focus. I’m just really happy that it’s done… it’s a bit of a relief, I guess you could say, just to be able to focus on what we’re doing here. We have a lot of goals to accomplish.

“So, yeah, we’ve had a couple really good years, but at the same time, I think that we all expect to continue to progress as a team and just kind of keep it going. So, yeah, I definitely felt like I was always going to be here. This is my home at Hendrick Motorsports, so it makes the most sense, for sure.”

Byron says he and his program is still a work in progress and always will be. The past three seasons have produced two, six and three wins respectively. He had just one win each in 2020 and 2021. Some of that was just adjusting to the highest level as a kid and the others was personnel.

It didn’t click with Byron paired with Hall of Fame crew chief Chad Knaus and the team really took off when he was reunited with Truck Series crew chief Rudy Fugle. There were a lot of variables to work through to get to the driver he is now.

“Yeah, I think I’ve really grown up a lot,” Byron said. “I was 20 years old when I got into the Cup Series, and I did not realize how many different facets of the series there are off the track and on the track; performing with your team and the meetings throughout the week to kind of move the ball forward as a group to build faster cars. I think that I was really young and raw when I got into the Cup Series. I had the talent, obviously, to do it, but had to have all the right pieces and really learn the cadence of everything.”

By 2023, Byron said he was comfortable in his role but that the people around him were just the right fits too and it showed in the results.

“I think, honestly, when we got rolling in 2023, it just felt different,” Byron said. “It felt like we had more speed. It felt like our cars were a lot closer. And then it just, I think, has continued these last couple of years. So, yeah, I think there’s still a lot of room to grow. There’s still room for me to improve my process and just continue to kind of get that system of how I want to do things on the weekend and during the week just to make sure that I’m as fresh as I can be and as prepared as I can be.

“So, yeah, in the past, we’ve had some periods of time throughout the season where we’ve struggled. I’d like for this year to not have that period at all and just continue to progress forward, and I think that’s what I’ve noticed this year. We’ve had a couple bad finishes or something like that, but I feel like we tend to show up the next week and have really fast cars and have speed. We just have to continue doing that and try to be kind of the standard of the series.”

To his point, the past two seasons have seen kind of a summer slump for the No. 24 team, but it’s also fair to view that as a period where Fugle and the engineers try some things.

All told, this contract is one step closer towards Byron making the No. 24 team synonymous with him and not Chase Elliott or Jeff Gordon before him … not that he looks at it that way.

“If you look at other sports like the Yankees, the Patriots or whoever, they’re always going to be known for their history, and that’s what you want,” Byron said. “You just want to continue to add to that. So, for me, all I can do is try to continue to add to that and bring some new, I guess, flavor and excitement to the No. 24. We have a lot of the same sponsors, you know, like Axalta. The cars look new and different but similar and kind of carry that history, which I love.

“So, I love being part of a historic car number and being able to, you know, check my new kind of boxes off the list, like hopefully winning the Coca-Cola 600 would be awesome. I think somebody was saying that Jeff (Gordon) was the last one to win the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same year. So, that would be awesome to kind of add to that legacy, for sure.”