It has been a struggle throughout the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season for Hendrick Motorsports, but perhaps no more so than it has been for William Byron.
Byron ended the Championship 4 era of the NASCAR playoffs as the only driver to qualify for the winner-take-all round in 2023, 2024, and 2025. He won a series-high six races in 2023, led over 1,000 laps in 2023 and 2025, and won the 2025 regular season championship.
But he ended the 2026 regular season 13th in the point standings with just 176 laps led, and with a win drought that has lasted for 13 months, dating back to his August 2025 win at Iowa Speedway.
William Byron drops to last place after Darlington disaster
Byron got off to a relatively strong start in the postseason in Sunday night's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, scoring points in both stage one and stage two to position himself to make a leap into the top 10 in the standings with a top 10 finish.
Then the engine failed in his No. 24 Chevrolet, and he was forced to settle for a 37th place finish, netting him just one more point and dropping him all the way to last in the standings among the 16 playoff drivers.
While the engine issue itself was rare, it marks Byron's eighth DNF and/or finish of 30th worse of the 2026 season. He has only half as many top five finishes, after having tallied 39 of them from 2023 to 2025.
He is now 114 points out of the championship lead behind Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin, after entering the Chase 85 points behind, and he is still searching for his first top five finish since early July.
The Enjoy Illinois 300 is the second race on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase schedule, and it is scheduled to take place on Sunday, September 13 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. USA Network is set to provide live coverage beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET.
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