In NASCAR Cup Series practice at Chicago, things were looking promising for William Byron. He was faster than Shane van Gisbergen, setting the pace in the first practice group. He lapped the street circuit in 1:31.008s, over three tenths quicker than SVG.
However, after completing eight laps, the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet returned to the track for the closing moments of the session. That ended up being a mistake, as Byron lost it on entry into Turn 10. The car slid out and hit the wall, breaking the left-rear toe-link and damaging the side of the car. He crab-walked the car back to the pits, but the damage was done.
Byron will have to start from the rear of the field as a result of the costly mistake. He will join Denny Hamlin on the back row, who lost an engine at the very beginning of the practice session.
“I’m an idiot,” Byron told TNT Sports. “I just took a lot through there and (had) a lot of speed. I was just getting my tires cleaned back off from leaving pit road.”
He continued: “I had just pitted, so my tires were probably just coming up to temp again. I took it easy the first half of the lap and I was starting to push, being close to the alternate start/finish (line) and just lost traction.”
As for the battle ahead of him, Byron was confident in his ability to get the No. 24 back through the field, but admitted: “Just sucks starting from the back … just don’t like crashing.”
Byron ended up second overall in practice. Unfortunately, his Hendrick Motorsports teammates also found the wall, just not as severely. Chase Elliott pancaked the wall at Turn 4 and Alex Bowman was forced to replace a bent toe-link. Like Byron, Elliott won’t make a qualifying attempt either.
In this article
Nick DeGroot
NASCAR Cup
William Byron
Hendrick Motorsports
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