Sometimes, it’s easy to forget about William Byron at Hendrick Motorsports because he is the most outwardly non-descript of the four Cup Series drivers.
Chase Elliott, the 2020 champion and most popular driver
Kyle Larson, the 2021 champion and the most decorated driver in American motorsports
Alex Bowman, low-key one of the biggest personalities in the sport
So, what does that make Byron?
“I’m the other guy,” Byron said.
How does that make him feel?
“I use it all as fuel, so just keep it coming,” Byron said. “All the preseason predictions and everything. I think it just for me, I just try to stay quietly focused. I feel like for me, I do well having my own space and being able to work through the things with my race team.
“I have to kind of balance that kind of calm demeanor with working with my team and being vocal enough to do the things we need to do to get the car better and things like that.
“I don’t know. I don’t read too much into it. I’m never going to be the most vocal guy. I just enjoy getting in the race car and putting the helmet on and going to work. That’s what I’ve always lived for.”
To wit, Byron stands out by winning, something he has done for a decade now since starting his ascent up the NASCAR ladder system as someone best articulated as a racing prodigy.
His direct supervisor, four-time champion Jeff Gordon says he is a racing machine.
“William just puts in the work,” Gordon said. “That’s all he thinks about. He’s in the simulator. He’s watching tapes. He has worked so hard. People don’t realize how much time he puts in.”
Byron might not be flashy but he has become steely efficient, breaking out in a big way in 2023 by leading the Cup Series with six wins, and emerging as a legitimate championship threat for the first time in his young career.
And despite 11 victories in seven years, Byron and crew chief Rudy Fugle have a bit of a chip on their shoulders because they didn’t close out last year and because they once again aren’t popular preason picks or the talk of the town.
Before that, Byron was dismissed for starting his actual racing career too late, as a 14-year-old, in an era where most eventual Cup drivers start racing at four or five years old. Then he was dismissed for being the kid that made it to NASCAR only because he was good at iRacing.
Then he made it to Cup only because Hendrick and Gordon took a liking to him.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get that chip off my shoulder,” Byron said. “It’s always been there. It’s just I’m very quiet about it. I don’t know. There’s always reasons to find. We didn’t win the championship, and we don’t get talked about the most, and other people get more publicity, things like that, and I feel like I just — whatever I find, I use as motivation.
It’s just the way I’ve always been internally. I don’t express that a lot. But it definitely burns inside.”
Some of that motivation is driven by wanting to prove the doubters wrong — not remotely giving them the chance to validate their convictions.
“There’s a lot of doubt that creeps in,” Byron said. “I feel like it goes back to me wondering if I’m right for this sport because I came in such a different way.
“I feel like there’s a lot of things that I didn’t learn like going through go-karts and quarter midgets and all those things. So I kind of wondered sometimes, ‘am I doing it right or do I have all the ingredients for it takes?’
As it turns out, he has what it takes and now he is a perpetual Cup Series contender and now he’s joined the likes of Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Geoffrey Bodine and Darrell Waltrip as Hendrick Motorsports drivers to have won the Daytona 500.
“Just a lot of emotions,” Byron said. “My favorite part was the confetti just because that’s what I always remember about the 500 is the confetti shower, and that part was really cool. I grew up watching Jimmie I think in ’06 winning the 500, and that’s what I remember.”
And maybe, just maybe, people will start to remember Byron as more than the other guy.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.