NASCAR Cup Austin
Byron "could have done better" in OT restarts at COTA
William Byron and Tyler Reddick appeared locked in a one-on-one duel for the win during much of Sunday’s race at Circuit of the Americas, but multiple overtimes finally cost Byron a chance at the victory.
Jim Utter
Edited: Mar 27, 2023, 5:06 PM
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Together, Byron and Reddick led 69 of the 75 laps that ended up being run as it featured three two-lap overtimes due to multiple wrecks late in the race.
At one point in the final stage, Byron and Reddick were swapping the lead multiple times on the same lap.
Reddick finally took the lead for good on Lap 64 but Byron, who started on the pole, was still in position to challenge for the win, lining up second to start the first overtime and third to start the second overtime.
Byron got shuffled back to fifth in the third overtime as Kyle Busch and Alex Bowman made contact entering Turn 1 and that’s where he ended his day.
“It was alright. I probably could have done better on those restarts. I gotta look,” he said. “I just kept getting pushed wide, and it seemed like the last one didn’t happen for some reason. I just gave up too much track position.
“Good to get a top-five. We had a good race car, I think a top-two race car I think, really, with (Reddick). He was a lot better than everybody else but I thought we were a close second.”
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports, Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro and Austin Cindric, Team Penske, Discount Tire Ford Mustang
Photo by: Rusty Jarrett / NKP / Motorsport Images
Byron, who became the first Cup driver to win poles on four different road courses, was hoping to earn his first road course win. He has become an accomplished road racer in his relatively brief career but has yet been able to get to Victory Lane.
Still, Byron said he enjoyed the back-and-forth battle with Reddick.
“It was really fun. Tyler is great and they were great all weekend. Tyler’s been great on the road courses. We made it a battle for sure every time with crossovers, out-braking each other – that was a lot of fun,” he said.
“I hate that it kind of got down to restarts there at the end. I got shoved off one time in second. We probably could have done some things different.
“We had good speed but Tyler was so fast all weekend. I felt like when I got the lead that I was slipping and sliding. That was fun.”
Read Also:
- How NASCAR stars taught F1 veterans a big lesson in racecraft at Austin
- Suarez may face NASCAR penalty for post-race incident at COTA
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