{"id":341613,"date":"2025-10-29T21:19:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T21:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/341613\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T21:19:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T21:19:21","slug":"the-case-for-william-byron-to-earn-his-first-nascar-cup-series-championship-at-phoenix-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/341613\/","title":{"rendered":"The case for William Byron to earn his first NASCAR Cup Series championship at Phoenix on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>CONCORD, N.C. &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong>Sometimes, it just takes a little spark to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/news\/articles\/144918\/nascar-stats-driver-averages-william-byron-kyle-larson-look-for-a-second-phoenix-win-to-clinch-championship\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">start a championship run<\/a>. For William Byron, that spark very well could have been ignited at Martinsville Speedway.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/news\/articles\/144927\/nascar-paint-scheme-preview-phoenix-cup-series-championship-grabs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paint schemes for Phoenix<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After tough outings at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/news\/articles\/144903\/william-byron-rudy-fugle-martinsville-win-phoenix-nascar-championship-4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the No. 24 team<\/a> entered last weekend in a virtual must-win situation. They responded by claiming the pole, leading 304 laps and sealing the day with a trip to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/news\/articles\/144875\/nascar-results-martinsville-byron-scores-victory-nascar-playoffs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">victory lane.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But the job&#8217;s not finished.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/photos\/144890\/byron-wins-martinsville-images-nascar-playoffs#\/0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Check out the images from victory lane at Martinsville<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sunday will mark\u00a0Byron&#8217;s third consecutive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/news\/articles\/144965\/nascar-championship-numbers-statistics-point-kyle-larson-william-byron-phoenix\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Championship 4<\/a> appearance. But in a year full of twists and turns, a walk-off victory might just be what the team needs to break through and leave Arizona with a championship trophy.<\/p>\n<p>Take a look at that stats that point to Byron being crowned the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion:<\/p>\n<p>        William Byron<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Phoenix starts: <\/strong>15<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phoenix wins:<\/strong> 1<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phoenix poles:<\/strong> 2<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phoenix top fives:<\/strong>\u00a03<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phoenix top 10s:<\/strong> 9\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Career laps led at Phoenix:<\/strong> 288<\/li>\n<li><strong>Average finish at Phoenix:<\/strong> 10.8<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The case:\u00a0<\/strong>Since the Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, Byron&#8217;s average finish at Phoenix\u00a0is eighth, the best of the Championship 4 drivers.\u00a0Last season, the No. 24 entry qualified on pole and paced the field for 83 laps before finishing sixth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Byron also enters this weekend having scored stage points in the last 19 segments at Phoenix. The last time he was outside of the top 10 to end a stage was the opening stage of the 2020 championship race. He&#8217;s also accounted for four stage victories in that timespan.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2183780436.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>But the final factor, one not controlled by statistics, is the exclusion of Team Penske in the final round. By virtue of a pass in the final stage at Martinsville, Byron knocked Ryan Blaney out of the Championship 4. For the first time in three years, a different team will raise the championship trophy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hendrickmotorsports.com\/news\/articles\/144933\/what-makes-phoenix-raceway-tough-rudy-fugle-cliff-daniels-talk-track-specifics-ahead-of-nascar-championship-4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What makes Phoenix so tough?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While anything can happen on\u00a0Sunday night, Byron and the No. 24 team are poised to make a run for the title on Sunday evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Catch the race at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CONCORD, N.C. &#8211;\u00a0Sometimes, it just takes a little spark to start a championship run. For William Byron, that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":341614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-341613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}